Vi kan inte bara utgå från barnens intresse. Pedagogers guidning av barns intresse i förhållande till förskolans målstyrning

Abstract

Swedish preschool is based both on the idea of being optional and children's autonomy while preschool is part of the education system. This study intends to examine how preschool staff talk and stimulate children's learning outcomes correlated to children's interest given the curriculum and other kind of policy documents. How does preschools staff take advantage of children's interest in order to support their advancement of knowledge in various area? How does preschools staff handle challenges concerning respect for the children's interest in governance, in the light of the aims for knowledge in the preschool curriculum. The thesis is based on the pre-school as a sociocultural practice and builds on Rogoffs analysis on three planes. This means that guided participation and learning processes must be seen from different perspectives as inseparable, community/institutional, interpersonal, and personal. During the field studies two preschools were visited. Everyday activities in which children and preschool staff participated were observed and were complemented with interviews and field notes. The results of the study shows that educators in preschool stimulate and discuss children's learning in two different ways, but that guidance can be overlapped in the practical vocational everyday life. The result shows that educators are compliant and captures children's interest in a subsequent guidance and continues with that the child has by its own turned its attention towards. Educators also attract children towards knowledge they are considered needing based on the conception of an interest the child has, and modifies the interest and adapt it to educational activities by enticing modification. Children's interests may coincide or interact with educational activities, but may also be absent. Educators deal with various challenges to create a meeting between children and educational goals in different ways; by overcoming culturally entrenched structural barriers, forming serious but joyful learning environments, guide using fiction and to unite and separate different kinds of knowledge.