Preschool teachers thoughts on needs and support in preschool : - A qualitative study

Aim: Preschool teachers are expected to identify special needs children in preschool, but the policy documents and directives for Swedish preschool are vague. The aim of this study is to examine the preschool teachers' perception of what the concept of children in need of special support means, and to make visible which methods they feel that they have access to. The data collection method for this study is interviews. Four preschool teachers and one childcare taker from preschools in two municipalities in Northern Sweden were chosen by two criteria's: long experience from working with special needs children and with the preference to be preschool teachers. To analyze the data we use policy enactment theory (Ball, 2015) and dilemma perspective of Nilholm (2005). Result: The results show that preschool teachers define special needs children in different ways from recontextualizing policy documents. According to the preschool teachers in the study, special needs children differ from the rest of the child group in some way and have behaviors that affect the child group. The participants see other professions as an important help in their work but also that there are many types of support that preschool teachers do not see diagnosis as a criteria for a child to get special support. The analysis shows that a lot of the support is not inclusive and that special needs children often get a deviant identity. Conclusion: The conclusion is that it is hard to define what a special needs child is, and that there are plenty of methods and support that the preschool teachers can apply themselves. Suggestion of further research is also presented