Utifrån resultaten har det väckts ett intresse för att vidare studera funna fostransaspekter såväl empiriskt som teoretiskt. Dels finns det anledning att analysera dessa aspekter i fler sammanhang och tränga djupare in i aspekternas innebörder och konsekvenser för både innehåll och form i förskolan, dvs. både för vad som kommuniceras liksom för hur denna kommunikation går till. Framför allt förefaller aspekterna lekfullhet och emotionell närvaro viktiga att utforska för att ytterligare kunna identifiera vari dessa egentligen består och innebär för interaktionen mellan lärare och barn. Dels är det rimligt att tänka att det finns fler aspekter av värde att lyfta fram för granskning. Empiriskt sett kan andra typer av situationer, liksom variabler som klass, kön och etnicitet tänkas bidra med att
ytterligare kasta ljus över kvalitativa aspekter i barns fostran. Teoretiskt vore det intressant att ytterligare problematisera den symmetriska idén som empiriskt har visat sig något problematisk. Alternativa teoretiska idéer har lyfts fram i diskussionen där begreppet anerkjennelse, så som det studerats och brukats av Bae (2004), förefaller särskilt intressant att gå vidare med och förhålla till såväl teorin om det kommunikativa handlandet som empiri.
Även om studierna i avhandlingen i mångt och mycket satt fokus på läraren, förmedlas teorins användningspotential för att tolka och förstå kommunikations-handlingar mellan vuxna och små barn. En fråga som har aktualiserats gäller teorins möjligheter att analysera hur små barn upprätthåller ett kommunikativt handlande med varandra via idén om giltighetsanspråk. Det vore intressant att se vad en sådan analys skulle kunna bidra med.
Ytterligare frågor som aktualiserats allt starkare ju längre forskningsprocessen fortskridit rör hur normer för manligt och kvinnligt gör sig gällande i förskolefostran och då specifikt i relation till de omsorgsetiska, demokratiska och disciplinerande värdena. Under analysarbetet väcktes ofta könsrelaterade frågor. Hur kommuniceras dessa värden till flickor respektive pojkar? Vilka könsrelaterade mönster framträder i kommunikationshandlingarna? När, och på vilket sätt bryts dessa mönster? Får värdena olika dignitet i lärares kommunikation till flickor respektive pojkar? Att besvara även dessa frågor i föreliggande avhandling föll utanför gjorda avgränsningar. Emellertid har dessa frågor framträtt som alltmer intressanta varför det skulle vara värdefullt att göra en reanalys av redan konstruerad data. Det skulle troligen också vara fruktbart att studera betydelsen av socioekonomisk bakgrund, för att fördjupa förståelsen av olika villkor för förskolefostran.
7 Summary
The general aim of this doctoral thesis was to acquire knowledge about fostering young children in Swedish preschools, as expressed in everyday interactions between teachers and children. The focus was partly on how values were communicated by the teachers and partly on what kind of values teachers continuously encouraged when they interacted with the children. The thesis has a critical approach in order to also obtain knowledge about important fostering aspects that might change power structures in the direction of fostering values characterized by intersubjectivity.
Data consisted of video observations of teacher and child interactions. From this data 115 episodes have been analysed. These episodes were of different character and length and consisted of 777 minutes of video recordings. The fieldwork took place with three different groups of toddlers in Swedish preschools. Forty-six children (aged 1 to 3 years) participated, as well as their ten teachers who were all women with several years of professional experience in early childhood teaching.
In the analysis, concepts derived from both Jürgen Habermas’ and Basil Bernstein’s theoretically ideas have been used. Basically, the thesis is inspired by the way Habermas (1995a) views society from both a life-world and a system perspective. These perspectives have been productive in the interpretations of the educational processes as directed either towards individuals’ understanding and meaning making through communicative action or towards goals and successes of society as a whole through strategic action. According to Habermas (1995a), a communicative action is a co-operative action between individuals oriented towards mutual understandings, which make possible dialogue in a subject-subject relationship. Strategic action, on the other hand, aims at attaining the goals of one party – which make the other party the object of the action – rather than creating a dialogue based on intersubjectivity. Therefore strategic action leads to an objectification of fellow beings since people are used instrumentally to protect personal interests. These concepts have been fruitful when it comes to understandings of different communication forms. Moreover, in the analysis it became obvious that power and control were important for how the outcome of the interactions. For this reason,
and as a complement, Bernstein’s theoretical ideas about power and control, in terms of strong and weak classification and framing, have been used. Briefly, the concept of classification is used to examine the relation between categories, e.g. different activities in preschool, and how it deals with power. Framing, on the other hand, concerns who controls what and is used to analyze different forms of communication with respect to the control of the communication.
In previous research on fostering young children in preschool, three themes of relevance to this doctoral thesis are outlined. These themes are related to fostering values concerning social order, care and democracy. To summarize, this overview indicates that fostering of social order is strongly emphasized (i.e. Ehn, 1983; Henckel, 1990; Nordin-Hultman, 2004) but has changed from open authoritarian forms to more invisible means of exercising power (Bartholdsson, 2007; Hultqvist, 1990). Additionally, caring values seem to be very important from teacher’s perspectives (Gannerud & Rönnerman, 2006; Johansson, 2002; Markström, 2005). It is shown that early childhood teachers take the position of caregivers by protecting children, offering them affiliation and comfort, and emphasising their individual accomplishments (Thronton & Goldstein, 2006). As regards democratic values, research has found that children’s influence is limited; often as a result of teachers’ attitudes, rules and their use of power. Previous studies primarily deal with attitudes towards, and/or experiences of both formal and informal influence (i.e. Aspán, 2005; Ekström, 2006; Forsberg, 2000; Odelfors, 1996; Selberg, 1999; Sheridan, 2001). Research on teacher and child dialogues (Bae, 1992, 2004) shows how spacious patterns, in contrast to narrow, can contribute to equality between the teachers and the children characterized by mutual recognition, which validates children’s experiences. In summary, this review has shown that previous studies are placed in different research fields related to normalisation, ethics and morality as well as democracy and rights. None of the investigations referred concerned the totality of these value orientations, how they are interrelated and how they are communicated to children, which is the focus of interest in this doctoral thesis. Differences between this project and other projects are partly the focus on the youngest children in the educational system and partly the way the fostering of values is studied through videotaped observations of everyday interactions. Another difference is the theoretical approach. Using theoretical concepts from Habermas to interpret and understand the communication between teachers and very young children should be regarded as unusual.
The thesis is based on three empirical studies, which will be summarized below.