Departementet vil... : diskursanalyse av et utsnitt av språkkartleggingsdebatten, med kritiske blikk mot et mulig spenningsfelt mellom førskolelærere og Kunnskapsdepartementet

In 2009 the government message 41 (KD, 2008-2009) came out with the title: Quality in the Kindergarten. The government message proposed new conditions for the kindergarten, as to: give offer to map children`s language development to all nations kindergarten children. The debate about this suggestion has been a highly debated topic the last years and the opposite side has created a kindergarten declaration against language mapping of children in kindergartens. The suggestion from government message 41 was to continue when an expert panel had considered a range of "tools" that at the time, are used in Norwegian kindergartens. The language mapping debate has been very interesting; therefore I wished to research it closer this year. There might be indications that it has occurred tension between preschool teachers and the Ministry of Education and Research. With this experience the two research questions emerged: Is there a tension between preschool teachers and the Ministry of Education and Research through the language mapping debate? What could the consequences be of this possible tension? These questions are what the assignment is intended to answer through a discourse analysis of an excerpt of the language mapping debate. The data material is twelve specialized articles written after a conference about language mapping at the Teachers House in June 2010. The assignment’s segment of the knowledge theory is relying on the social constructionism perspectives, where I am following Jørgensen and Phillips (1999) and Vivien Burr (1995), and the postmodern perspectives, where I am following Dahlberg, Moss and Pence (2002) and Nordin-Hultman (2004). The assignment’s discourse analysis is multi perspective in that part it is built on several discourse analysis permissions and perspectives. Mainly I have chosen to follow Norman Faircloughs (1995) critical discourse analysis, but in addition choose to use elements from Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffes (2002) discourse theory of text, and sociocultural perspectives in the analyse of social practise. Analysis of the data material revealed several discourses. To do further analysis the number of discourses had to be narrowed. The discourses that are analysed further are the following: Kindergarten individuality discourse, discourse about kindergarten in change, discourse about knowledge and quality in the kindergarten, profitable investing discourse and a profession discourse. These discourses emerged from the science questions asked before the second reading: what are the texts telling about the possible tensions between preschool teachers and the Ministry of Education and Research? The texts of these five discourses were analysed with elements from discourse theory and several discourses were identified. By turning a critical view on the texted language, I will research if there is tension between two of the most central actors in the debate about language mapping (Preschool teachers and the Ministry of Education and Research). If there is tension, it will be interesting to investigate further what may cause the tension, and what the consequences might be