Den fysiska beröringens pedagogik i förskolan

The purpose of this study is to produce knowledge about when and in what way preschool teachers give children physical contact in the preschools’ daily routine and how the children react to physical contact. Physical touch in preschool is regarded as an important part of the children's human contact, sense of security and learning. We chose to do a qualitative study which was based on observations and interviews as a method. The empirical study was guided by three research questions: How do preschool staff describe and use physical touch in teaching the children? In which ways do preschool staff affect children physically and do they pay attention to childrens integrity? In which situations do the preschool staff give children physical touch during a work day? The pedagogues who were interviewed described in their answers about what physical touch means for them and how they use physical touch in the preschool activities. By looking at the observation materials we found a difference between how they gave the boys respectively the girls physical contact in some of the daily routines. The results that came out of the analysis showed that all pedagogues believe that physical contact is extremely important in preschool