Händelser vid datorn: Förskolebarns positioneringsarbete och datorspelets agens

Syftet med artikeln är att belysa hur barns samspel och subjektpositionering vid datorn relaterar till själva datorspelandet, och vilket agentskap datorspelet kan tillskrivas i förhållande till barns samspel. Med inspiration från posthumanistisk teoribildning betraktar jag här både datorspel och barn som agentiska. Genom detaljerade analyser av ett par barns datorspelande visar jag att aktivitet pågår hela tiden, inte bara mellan barnen, utan också mellan spelet och barnen. Analysen visar hur barnens samspel initieras av datorspelet och hur de för in erfarenheter från sin omvärld för att stärka sin argumentation och sina positioner. Barnen rör sig på så vis mellan olika diskurser som förekommer både utanför och inom förskolan och i datorspelet, och deras positioneringar produceras intra-aktivt utifrån såväl materiella som diskursiva praktiker

Språkundervisning i förskolan: Teoretiska principer och empiriska exempel

I artikeln teoretiseras ett undervisningsbegrepp relevant för förskolans verksamhet. Teoretiskt grundas detta begreppsliggörande i såväl ett evolutionärt som i ett pedagogiskt-psykologiskt perspektiv. Några centrala teoretiker vi bygger på är Barnett, Rommetveit, Tomasello och Vygotskij. Vi lokaliserar grunden till undervisning i människors tendens att göra sådant de själva sett/insett synligt också för andra. Institutioner såsom förskolan och skolan förstås här som sätt för samhället att främja bevarandet av ackumulerande erfarenheter hos den växande generationen, något som gör undervisning centralt. Vi ger empiriska exempel på hur språkundervisning kan gestalta sig i dagens förskola; aktiviteter som vi analyserar utifrån de teoretiska begrepp vi introducerar. Några av de begrepp vi skriver fram för att teoretisera undervisning mer allmänt och språkundervisning mer specifikt i förskolan är responsivitet, kommunikativa praktiker, spänningsfältet mellan intersubjektivitet och alteritet, polyfoni och barns skilda erfarenheter, samt lek och lekfullhet. Vikten av att teoretisera undervisning i förskolan utifrån empirisk forskning betonas

Children's voices-differentiating a child perspective from a child's perspective

OBJECTIVE : The aim of this paper was to discuss differences between having a child perspective and taking the child's perspective based on the problem being investigated. METHODS : Conceptual paper based on narrative review. RESULTS : The child's perspective in research concerning children that need additional support are important. The difference between having a child perspective and taking the child's perspective in conjunction with the need to know children's opinions has been discussed in the literature. From an ideological perspective the difference between the two perspectives seems self-evident, but the perspectives might be better seen as different ends on a continuum solely from an adult's view of children to solely the perspective of children themselves. Depending on the research question, the design of the study may benefit from taking either perspective. In this article, we discuss the difference between the perspectives based on the problem being investigated, children's capacity to express opinions, environmental adaptations and the degree of interpretation needed to understand children's opinions. CONCLUSION : The examples provided indicate that children's opinions can be regarded in most research, although to different degrees.http://informahealthcare.com/journal/pdr2016-06-30hb201

Enchantment in storytelling: Co-operation and participation in childrens aesthetic experience

In early childhood education, storytelling has traditionally been seen as a learning activity that lays the groundwork for childrens vocabulary and literacy development. The present study uses video-recorded storytelling events to examine young childrens emotional involvement and aesthetic experiences during adult storytelling in a regular Swedish preschool for 1- to 3.5-year-olds. By adopting a multimodal interactional perspective on human sense-making, socialization, and literacy (Goodwin, 2017), it contributes to research examining multimodality in early childhood literacy (Kyratzis amp; Johnson, 2017). The analytical focus is on co-operation in aesthetic experience: the teachers ways of organizing an entertaining, affectively valorized and enchanting storytelling, and the children audiences verbal and nonverbal participation (Goodwin amp; Goodwin, 2004). The study shows that teachers used lighthouse gaze, props, marked prosody and pauses to invite the child audience to participate, join the attentive multiparty participation frameworks and share the affective layering of story. The young children exploited the recognizability of the story and contributed by co-participating through bodily repetitions, choral completions, elaborating or volunteering anticipatory contributions, and pre-empting the upcoming story segment. The study suggests that through adult-child co-operation, the embodied telling becomes a site for childrens affective and aesthetic literacy socialization. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc.Funding Agencies|Swedish Research Council</p

Events of potential learning : how preschoolers produce curriculum at the computer during free play periods

Abstract: The Swedish preschool curriculum emphasizes children’s learning through play. This means that children’s learning in everyday practice is accomplished through a complex mixture of teacher-led activities and activities the children themselves initiate. When learning is viewed as situated and constituted through social interaction (Lave &amp; Wenger, 1991), almost all social events have learning potential. Consequently, from an educational and a curriculum point of view it is important to raise the question of how children’s learning can be made visible, and determine what kind of learning children’s own initiated (play) activities imply. The focus of the paper is on children’s (aged 3-5 years) “communities of practice” at the computer during “free play” period in two various Swedish preschools settings. Events of peer interaction are analyzed in detail to illustrate what kind of learning activities are going on at the computer, and to discuss these events of potential learning in relation to the curriculum goals and the educational practice. From a curriculum point of view, the analyses show that the children’s activities at the computer involve a variety of events that might provides for learning that can be viewed as goal-oriented. From the children’s point of view, the project of socialization seems to be the most prominent goal. A crucial point for educational success, however, is to understand not only what the object of learning is, rather what motivates children’s play apprenticeship in their own “communities of practice”.

Children's use of English as lingua franca in Swedish preschools

This paper highlights a current phenomenon reported from preschools placed in multilingual areas in Sweden, namely that some preschoolers with mutually different language backgrounds sometimes use English as lingua franca instead of Swedish during play. The data stems from a study of language environments in Swedish preschools situated in both monolingual and multilingual areas. The analyses reveal that many children are influenced by the English language in both areas, but to a much greater extent in multilingual areas. An interesting situation arises when the majority language of society, which is also the language of education and lingua franca of the preschool, acquires a less prevailing role in children's accomplishment of everyday practices. Data show that the participating children are exposed to and speak English to a varying extent. They learn and teach each other English, and speak English in an array of pragmatic purposes; to position themselves in the social hierarchies of the preschool group, to create meaning within their shared peer culture and for the purpose of exclusion of intruders. English is also used as a secret language of friendship