Evnerike barn i barnehagen

As I see it, the theme of gifted children is neglected in Norwegian kindergartens. This Master’s dissertation points at the dominant attitudes towards that we are all as equal and able. It highlights how gifted children can be seen and how they react to kindergarten. In the Norwegian society, the ideas of social levelling and equality are explicit and declared. These ideas form the society in such a way that they establish a foundation, on which we all can live together. They give us ideas of who we are, what we should do and which opportunities we are able to find. These ideas offer opportunities to most people, but they can also lead to the society limiting the individual. The ideas of equality may thereby not always be a strength, but also a hindrance. Equality can become so important that the room for normality becomes too narrow – individuals may experience it as hard to fit into the society. I seek to highlight how gifted children can act in kindergarten. In the first section, literature explains who the gifted children are and can be. It deals with the term ˮintelligence” and with how different IQ levels may affect children. Later on, I talk about their ability to enter relations, about what difficulties they may face and about reasons why can be so. I connect views on gifted children to modern research about early childhood education. Then I discuss what law and regulations say about gifted children in kindergarten. In this part I will show that neither research nor regulations are hindrances to gifted children’s development. It seems as though the hindrances are not formalities, but predominantly prejudice. In the second section, I look upon how gifted children are adapting to kindergarten, as their parents perceive it. Focus group interviews with parents make up the main empirical part of this dissertation. On the basis of Foucault’s term of discourse, I discuss how power structures get to control the comprehensions that have significance around gifted children. The dissertation has elements of modernistic theory, but is also rooted in the field of postmodernism. In the analysis, I present the parents’ conception of how their child adapts to kindergarten. I connect this with literature on the topic. Finally, I present some summarising reflections on gifted children in kindergarten. The research on gifted children in pre-school age seems to have a low priority. I hope this dissertation will contribute to increased knowledge about this on the field of early childhood education