To Örebro University

This thesis, is about pedagogical documentation as a tool for transformation in preschool. The aim is to understand learning and transformation in, and of, preschool practice where pedagogical documentation has been used as a tool during a longer period of time.

Empirical data consists of texts by, and conversations with, personnel working at four preschool units who cooperated around a mutual project initiated by the Reggio Emilia Institute; a project where pedagogical documentation was a central tool. The study focuses on organizational issues and transformation, as statements about this appeared to be important in the participants' conversations.

The analysis is made in three steps. Data was put together into three themes. The three themes are: 1) a changed practice 2) experiences ofworking with documentation, and 3) to organize for exploratory learning. Then, an analysis was made giving an account of participants’ descriptions of working with pedagogical documentation as a joint trip, especially making use of Engeström’s model of an activity system and expanded learning, described metaphorically as a black box. Finally, Wartofsky’s theory on primary, secondary, and tertiary aspects of a tool is used. Thus, pedagogical documentation was illustrated from many different perspectives.

The result shows that working with pedagogical documentation has led to preschool teachers discussing epistemological and ontological questions. This in turn led to preschool teachers starting to act differently in pedagogical practice, where acting differently became a trigger for revealing contradictions in the activity system, which participants describe as being solved over time. So, organization of preschool practice had changed on a unit level as well as on a preschool level including the children. Among other things, teacher teamwork has expanded when working with pedagogical documentation. The expanded team has meant that stories from the documented material have come in motion through analysis in several stages. Stories in motion, and pedagogical documentation perceived as seen from different perspectives, can be described as a complex tool.

Swedish preschool teachers must systematically document activities in the preschool in order to evaluate the quality of these activities. Pedagogical documentation is one form of documentation that is proposed. The aim of this article is to discuss and create knowledge of structures and tools based on different communicative aspects of pedagogical documentation. The empirical data consists of statements from preschool teachers with many years of experience of using pedagogical documentation. Their statements have been analyzed based on Wartofsky's concept of primary, secondary and tertiary artifacts. The study points to the importance of various tools of organisation in providing direction and frames for documentation in order to enable structures of communication built on rhizomatic learning.

Swedish preschool teachers are obliged to work with systematic documentation and assessment of children’s changing knowledge. The aim of this study is to contribute to research on assessment in preschool, by highlighting multiple voices portrayed in a transformative documentation practice, built on systematic work of pedagogical documentation.

Pedagogical documentation refers to two related areas: 1) the process, and 2) content in the process (Dahlberg et al, 2006). Pedagogical documentation is primarily about trying to understand what is going on in pedagogical work, to understand what a child knows and learns, without predetermined expectations (Dahlberg et al, 2006).

Bakhtin’s concept of polyphony is used as a conceptual framework.

The methodology is qualitative text analysis. Preschool teachers’ voices are analyzed in relation to the concept of transformative assessment (Vallberg Roth, 2014), as well as the Bahktinian concepts of dialogicity, the authoritarian word, and unconditional connections.

Informed consent was obtained from all the participants in this study: teachers and parents of the children at the preschool.

The results show a complexity of simultaneously existing polyphonic voices, where the teachers are negotiating their efforts to engage dialogically, in order to connect with the children, and the demands of authoritative voices related to assessment.

By highlighting the complexities and tensions involved in systematic quality work, this research has implications for the development of teacher’s assessment and evaluation practices.

The aim is to develop knowledge about young children’s learning of academic concepts as embodied actions and through imagination. In the Swedish preschool curriculum academic subjects such as math and science has been emphasised and the teachers are required to document, what is formulated, as the child’s ‘changed knowing’. There are tendencies that changed knowing is interpreted within two discourses: Goalrational learning versus goalrelational learning. In the former, learning academic subjects becomes a cognitive endeavour similar to teaching older children. In goal relational approaches curriculum goals are interpreted as tools in exploratory processes. We take a sociocultural perspective and apply Wartofsky’s idea of bodily representations and concepts. The empirical data is teachers’ pedagogical documentation in terms of photo images, dialogues between children-children and children-pedagogues and the pedagogues reflections. Interaction and conversation analysis based on the conceptual framework. The pedagogical documentation has been approved for research analysis. We had follow the Swedish ethical rules and guidelines for research in the humanities and social sciences. The result shows that in projects where preschool curriculum goals as, for example math and science, are considered as ‘tools’ and where children are enabled to engage with their whole body and through imagination, scientific concepts become tools in their exploration. An implication is the significance in preschool of taking children’s interest and engagement with their whole body as well as imagination as necessary components in learning processes.

The study aims to develop knowledge concerning how children and parents reflect on and make meaning of pedagogical documentation gathered in Reggio-inspired preschool projects. From a pedagogical documentation perspective, children are understood to be knowledge creators, it is therefore important to make children's voices visible (Dahlberg, Moss & Pence, 2001) However,questions have been raised about (a) if and how children are given opportunities to participate in the production of pedagogical documentation (Lenz Taguchi, 2012, Lindgren, 2012), and (b) the ethics of representing children in the documentation (Lindgren2016). Our theoretical framework is based on Biesta's (2006) concept of the rational community and the community-without-community. The study data was gathered through focus groups with eight children and their parents. The children and parents were askedto review samples of pedagogical documentation from the child's time in preschool. The documentation was also used as stimulus material during the interview. Finally, the parents were also asked to discuss with their children their memories regarding how it felt to be documented. Interview transcripts were subjected to narrative analyses. Informed consent was obtained from all study participants. Three themes emerged concerning the experience of working with and being a part of the practice of pedagogical documentation: a sense of context, the sense of participation and the sense of a way to explore life. Our analysis highlights that the children had opportunities to participate in the practice of documentation in a project and therefore their voices were supported in "breaking into the world"

The goal of this chapter is to respond to the scarcity of literature on creativity that is relevant both to CHAT and in the field of education. The authors explore Vygotsky's writings on creativity, imagination, art, and play in relation to three Swedish preschool projects that practice a pedagogy of exploratory learning. Also included are discussions of imagination versus realistic thinking, syncretism in children's creative work, and play as a creative activity. Because this study was a formative intervention, the pedagogy of exploratory learning became significant in the analysis. The bulk of the chapter consists of thick descriptions of the projects and discussion of aspects of creativity as they appear in the projects. The data was collected by teachers and a research team that consisted of the authors of this chapter. Data collection in the three projects took place before the intervention took place, during the initial phases of the intervention, and after the intervention had become an annual theme for the preschools. The research was initially guided solely by a cultural historical understanding of creativity, while the analysis brought CHAT into dialogue with postmodern writings that are related to exploratory learning.

In this presentation we will present several projects that have taken place over the past year in three Swedish preschools.  These preschools are inspired by approaches developed in the internationally-known preschools of Reggio Emilia, Italy and these preschools have been participating in a research project that combines their own pedagogy of exploratory learning with an educational activity, a form of adult-child joint play, called playworlds.  Playworlds were originally developed by Swedish scholar Gunilla Lindqvist to study what she called the common denominator of art and play, have been further developed by Finnish scholar Pentti Hakkarainen and are based in L. S. Vygotsky’s theories play and creativity.  The Swedish playworld projects that we will present can be considered to be forms of Imaginative Education particularly in their incorporation of cognitive tools for mythic understanding.  Through their use of these tools they demonstrate the centrality of imagination in preschool “learning.”

Further information on the presentation:

This presentation will include films and slides so that our audience develops an experiential appreciation of the unique qualities of these projects.  We will highlight the use of story, metaphor and abstract binary oppositions in these projects.  We will use our understanding of Vygotsky’s theories of play and creativity, in which imagination and creativity are aspects of the same process, and in which this process is embodied, for young children, in play, to show the ways that these play projects were an integral part of the exploratory learning that was taking place in these preschools. 

In our discussion of the projects we will explore with our audience the ways that the connections between imagination and learning can be understood by challenging the common divide between realistic thinking and fantasy.  This divide is, we believe, at the core of positions that dismiss or overlook the centrality of imagination in “learning”.  Early childhood is often officially ignored by such positions but, we will argue, preschool didactics is still profoundly (and (possibly increasingly) influenced by this divide.

Lekvärldar kan ses som en gemensam fantasivärld skapad av pedagoger och barn. Samvarooch samverkan är nödvändiga i pedagogiska verksamheter. Detta framkommer i ett projekt om lekvärldar och utforskande lärande och relationen mellan dessa. Samvaro signalerar ett genuint dynamiskt möte mellan två människor. Samvaro är ett självändamål, dess mening är inbyggt i själva relationen, medan samverkan representerar en social process reglerad av formella strukturer som reglerade roller och förutbestämda regler. Presentationen bygger på forskningsprojektet “Lekvärldar och utforskande lärande”. Syftet är att studera vad som sker när en aktivitet som kallas ”lekvärldar” integreras i en Reggio Emilia inspirerad förskola karaktäriserad av utforskande lärande.

Teaching in preschool: holistic preschool didactics built on play and exploration. In this article we critically examine and prob-lematize the concept of teaching in contemporary Swedish preschool provision, and sketch a holistic preschool didactics aimed at addressing key problems that emerge from the implementation of the concept of teaching in preschool. We briefly survey how teaching is conceptualized and managed from different theoretical perspectives and institutional discourses. Drawing on cultural historical activity theory and situated learning approaches, we argue for the formation of a preschool didactics based on a socio-cultural understanding of play in combination with a Reggio Emilia-inspired understanding of exploratory and project-based work methods.

In this article we critically examine and problematizethe concept of teaching in contemporary Swedish preschoolprovision, and sketch a holistic preschool didactics aimed at addressingkey problems that emerge from the implementation of the concept ofteaching in preschool. We briefly survey how teaching is conceptualizedand managed from different theoretical perspectives and institutionaldiscourses. Drawing on cultural historical activity theory and situatedlearning approaches, we argue for the formation of a preschool didacticsbased on a socio-cultural understanding of play in combination with aReggio Emilia-inspired understanding of exploratory and project-basedwork methods.

Since 1998, preschool provision in Sweden has been supervised through the Ministry of Edu-cation. Since then, concepts from compulsory schooling have been formally incorporated in this provision. Teaching, is a particularly striking example, as it is currently applied to pre-school based on the definition in the Swedish school law: “teacher-led, goal-oriented pro-cesses.” This paper contributes knowledge concerning how teaching in preschool can be un-derstood. Drawing on the concepts of staging, and goal-relational versus goal-rational pro-cesses, we present analyses of preschool activities documented as part of a year-long project focused on children’s socio-dramatic play and exploration. We argue for a goal-relational ap-proach to thinking about and arranging for goal-directed processes in preschool.

We introduce ‘Preschools Didactics From Within’ (PDFW), a novel approach to preschool-based research. This approach focuses on the design of research projects that (a) specifically address issues faced by preschool teachers and children and (b) create opportunities for teachers and children to contribute their expertise by mutually occasioning self-reflection among teachers, children and researchers. Conquergood (2002) calls for the development of research models that “bridge segregated and differently valued knowledges” and bring together “legitimated as well as subjugated modes of inquiry,” (p.151-152). PDFW is one such model. Specifically, PDFW is a kind of formative intervention organized around principles of cultural historical activity theory (Engeström, 2008). Data include field notes, audio and video recordings, interviews and artwork that were collected by researchers, teacher and students. Informed consent was obtained from teachers, parents and guardians. Our analyses show that teachers and children who participate in PDFW construct novel solutions and concepts that can be used in other instances as tools for the development of locally appropriate pedagogical adaptations. The practice of pedagogical documentation is key to understanding the rich, dynamic processes underlying the development of these concepts ''from within". 'Preschool Didactics From Within' has wide implications for research design - not just in preschool didactics - that is rigorous, democratic and that promotes a collaborative ethic among research participants (researchers included) that positively transforms both partner organisations (preschools in this case) and the academy. 

This presentation outlines a preschool didactic of exploration focused on designing aesthetically-oriented learning environments in which teachers and children dialogically explore themes based on children’s interests. The work expands on recent research on pre-K teaching practices that combine performance art and drama pedagogies, Nordbø (2012); Haugen et al (2006). In this project we apply a performance studies framework, Johansson (2012) to analysis of data from an ongoing qualitative study of one-year old preschoolers. Our claims are based on video and interview data collected in a preschool over a period of four months. Informed consent was obtained from teachers, parents and guardians. We describe how the teachers create “installations” that occasion children’s aesthetic exploration, and argue that the communication that subsequently unfolds between children and teachers promotes their development as culture and knowledge creators, Dahlberg & Lenz Taguchi (1994). These installations form a kind of metaphorical dance: The teacher and children mutually lead one another in remediating the installations in ways that leverage repetition. This enables the children to explore differences and similarities among different iterations of these installations over time. Critical to this process is the practice of pedagogical documentation which teachers use to longitudinally chronicle and narrativise children's experiences of the changing installations. We show how children use their bodies to explore the environment, and how teachers correspondingly adapt these environments in ways that challenge the form and content of prior installations. These observations provide a general framework for practitioners interested in designing and implementing aesthetically oriented preschool activities.