Learning about concepts through everyday language interactions in preschools

Background. In several Nordic countries, the pedagogy in preschools has a social pedagogical ideal. The focus is on development of social competence, aiming to empower children. There is only minimal focus on teaching and academic learning. The aim of this study is to investigate what kind of support children’s concept formation can receive when children are engaged in everyday language interactions with preschool teachers in Norway. Theoretically, the article is based on theories developed from Vygotsky’s (1987) perspectives on language as a mediating tool. Design. Two classrooms with two preschool teachers and 18 children in each class participated in the study. The preschool was chosen because it especially focused on children’s language learning. Method. This study is a qualitative study based on video-taped observations in one preschool, and the data are video-taped observations of language interactions between two preschool teachers and children in two preschool classrooms. Most language interactions in Norway occur in everyday conversations such as play, art activities and meals. Results. The teachers interacted with the children around topics that engage the children and topics they took initiative to talk about. The teachers invited the children in warm ways to use language to make meaning of the shared topic. However, they seldom presented supplementary concepts or expanded the children’s concept understanding with their own knowledge. Conclusion. The social pedagogical ideal may have made them associate such sharing of knowledge with teaching

Modelling the links between tax and financial reporting: a longitudinal examination of norway over 30 years up to IFRS adoption

Abstract The operational links between tax and financial reporting vary on a continuum from country to country and from period to period. We propose a model for how the links vary over time in developed Western countries. This takes account of competing purposes for accounting, and the mutual reactions of taxation and financial reporting authorities. We illustrate the model using the case of Norway over a 30-year period up to the adoption of IFRS. This has the incidental benefit of analysing the operational links for Norway, which has not been done systematically before, at three dates. We also put Norway into the context of four other countries by adopting and somewhat enhancing existing methodology. We show that Norway has moved from a ‘continental’ position to one that exceeds the disconnection of tax from financial reporting found in the USA or the UK. We raise several research questions related to the generalisability of our model.