Barns kunskaper om djurarter : Kan kunskaperna skilja beroende på vart man bor?

This study is about differences in knowledge regarding animals. In the study five year old preschool children from a city were compared to five year old preschool children in the suburbs with multicultural background. The study is also about where children´s knowledge about animals comes from and how educators can make a positive difference. To find this out standardized interviews was used on 23 children from four different preschools, two preschools in the suburbs with 15 children and two preschools in the city with 13 children. A survey was sent out to the educators within these preschools to gather background information on what the children do regarding animals. The results from the interviews made it clear that there were differences in the knowledge about different animals. Almost every child in the suburbs had difficulties to mention 10 animals. In the city on the other hand all the children except one mentioned more than 10 animals. A wide variation of animals was mentioned by the children in this study, in the suburbs domestic and farm animals was mostly mentioned while it was mostly exotic animals mentioned in the city. A possible causal explanation for the findings may be differences of language, nature, habit and culture