Umeå University's logo

In this article we explore how children's opportunities for subject-related learning in Nordic early childhood education and care (ECEC) depend on intra-actions between the physical environment, gender norms, and the relevant learning content. We apply a socio-material perspective and draw on three Swedish ECEC studies, in which the learning content was related to physics, dance, and environmental sustainability, respectively. The analyses illustrate how socio-material intra-actions encouraged or impeded certain bodily encounters, thereby encouraging or impeding certain kinds of subject-related learning.

Knowledge about how quality in extended education is defined, formulated, and communicated regarding quality-related problems in educational practices, and school leaders’ roles in these processes is limited. This article presents findings from research focusing on educational quality in extended education in Sweden (commonly known as School-age educare) is defined by school leaders in one Swedish municipality. The data examined written documents associated with governance and organizations of School-age educare created by school leaders at different levels of one Swedish municipality. The analysis of data was based on the concepts of Bernstein’s pedagogical codes (2003), and from Scherp and Scherp's School organization model (2007). The results revealed that the educational-pedagogical code dominated, and the leisure-pedagogical and social-pedagogical codes only appeared sporadically in the analyzed documents. A new ‘educational-economic’ pedagogical code emerged during analysis. It included formulations indicating that quality can be addressed by economic actions. The analyzed documents revealed power structures between different levels of school leaders, and also a lack of shared understanding and definition of quality in extended education. School leaders should discuss, and agree on, what quality in extended education includes and not only rely on quantitative and measurable aspects of this educational practice.

In this chapter, we report from a 4-year study of the systematic work at an organizational level towards a whole school approach to sustainability. Aiming to extend the individual good practices on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) to include all schools in the municipality, a process of school development began in 2019, and was studied for 4 years until 2022. Through a narrative approach, we describe the process and its critical events. Different dimensions of the school improvement model devised by Scherp and Scherp are also identified and analysed. The results show that a cyclic process, including not only different actions but also reflections, is important for improvement and, furthermore, that the holistic idea is an important dimension that should guide structures as well as teachers’ professional development towards more successful work with ESD in a whole-school organization.

Wintry conditions, including ice and snow, last for six months of the year in northern Scandinavia, and thus strongly influence many preschool outdoor educational practices, but there has been little research on their impact and implications. To address this gap, we have explored preschool teachers’ experiences of everyday outdoor practices during the winter in the region. Through an analysis rooted in post-human and new materialist perspectives, we have identified human agents as well as non-human agents and their complex intra-actions between variations in ice and snow (e.g. ice-crust and sticky snow). In addition to illustrating how non-human, temporal agents may directly affect outdoor preschool practices, our study shows that diverse intra-actions in human-nature encounters play important roles in the becoming of ice, snow and associated (un)sustainable values. The results indicate a need for further critical examination of how preschool children’s outdoor encounters are framed by seasonal and climatic changes.

This article focuses on the methodological experiences that emerged from a study investigating how teachers valued their daily encounters with children in early childhood education. Early childhood teachers often balance the demands of documentation with time spent with children, so have little time to reflect on their practice. Furthermore, participation in research projects tends to be both time-consuming and distracting from the practitioners' perspective, without providing immediate opportunities for professional development. The purpose of this article is to elaborate on the use of a mixed-methods approach that combines a quantitative digital tool (an application) for collecting data with the use of short qualitative interviews in order to explore methodological aspects in educational research. The pros of this mixed-methods approach include flexibility, the instant overview of data, and the reflective potential offered to the participants, as well as the researchers. The teachers had the opportunity to 'set the agenda' when giving their own definitions of valuable encounters and then reflect on their experiences in their own words. This gave them a strong voice. The main risks of this method concern the dependence on technical devices and software. The authors argue that there is potential in the reflective methodology used in this study to bring research and practice closer in comprehensive knowledge creation. This methodology offers a respectful way to gather information from practice and simultaneously provide opportunities to change.

This article investigates views and discourses on outdoor play in preschool teachers talks about their playgrounds and outdoor practices in Swedish preschools. Included were a strategic sample of teachers from newer, larger preschool facilities with more programmed outdoor space, and teachers from older, more traditional facilities containing more nature. Through interviews with 38 teachers at 21 preschools and a thematic analysis inspired by socio-material theory, we identified three main themes: The meanings and limits of free outdoor play, the view on nature and children’s encounters with nature,and dangers and risks in the playground. Within these themes, we show how the teachers’ views construct discourses related to the outdoor educational places and spaces that are available. Furthermore, changes in preschool curricula as well as in the playground material and design are active agents in constructing discourses on outdoor play, including risks and limitations, beyond teachers’ own beliefs on children’s needs.

This article explores toddler–place relationships outdoors during early childhood education in Sweden. Informed by Tim Ingold’s theorization of movement, we explore toddlers’ embodied engagements with the preschool playground and how the human–non-human environments become entangled. The results show that, just as in the wider world, the processes enabling and limiting toddlers’ engagements in the playground are continuously in motion. Toddler–place relationships are continuously created through a mutual dependence between human and non-human entities. In this sense, toddlers’ engagements with playgrounds are not separate from the place through which they engage, but change place.

This article aims to explore how extended education in Sweden, School-age educare (SAEC), is responding to education for sustainable development (ESD), since these two educational practices have not that often been combined nor related in research. The exploratory findings are based on a small-scale case study in one municipality; including three in-depth examples from practice. The results reveal different kind of activities in the centres visited, as well as different approaches to education for sustainable development within SAEC. The cases show activities related to traditional outdoor environmental education, to social justice and global issues, and also as meaning making through play-based activities. The results were further analysed in relation to core concepts within extended education as well as ESD, exploring the "missing link", but also new possibilities of ESD when part of an extended educational practice. The main conclusion of the analyses is that SAEC activities related to ESD offers education through sustainable development by active participation in various forms and contexts, as also currently suggested in policy and by scholars. By explicitly focusing ESD in the educational context of Swedish school-age educare, a missing link in this area of research was pinpointed paving the way for further research, and increased awareness in practice.

This study is part of a larger research project with the aim with to study how the outdoor environment and playgrounds affects children's physical activities and relational encounters with nature and peers. Previous research has shown the benefits of children's outdoor play in domains like; health, environmental engagement and care, as well as learning and meaning making. Preschool policy and practice is constantly balancing and combining school-like concepts and play (Pramling Samuelsson & Johansson, 2007). This study uses John Dewey's holistic and pragmatic perspective to study and analyse different notions of relational and experiential learning activities outdoors. In this particular study we have analyzed the interviews with teachers from 21 new and old preschools. A discourse analysis was carried out to uncover the different notions within different domains of outdoor play. The study is ethically motivated since it contributes knowledge about childrens' conditions in preschool in a time of change. The project has ethical approval for all steps of research. The findings show how the new preschool playgrounds has changed the use of the outdoor environments, the view on the preschool practice, and children in itself. There are more regulations on what children can or cannot do, as well as a strengthened focus on targeted learning in programmed areas. Potential risky-play are eliminated, and natural green areas are replaced either with artificial material or garden-like plants. The analyses open up for a critical discussion on what these changes in the modern preschools might mean for children of today.

School-Age Educare is an integrated part of the Swedish compulsory school organization, focusing socialrelations, children's interests and play. Although included in the national school curriculum, there is a lackof knowledge of if and how School-Age Educare currently work with the mandatory task of educationfor sustainable development (ESD). This article thus seeks to examine the educational potentials, butalso possible need for support, of School-Age Educare in relation to ESD. Through analyzing 453 teachersresponses to a questionnaire with open and closed questions, we reveal that most teachers find ESD important,but also want to learn more about it. There is potential in the educational task, and pedagogicalapproach, supporting ESD as a transactional and pragmatic approach. The constrains contributing to ESDlies in the somewhat absent awareness among the teachers themselves, but also in the limited resourcesand time available of carrying out sustainability education at the centers.