The Swedish preschool curriculum places strong emphasis on the home -- preschool partnership and parent engagement in this regard is considered important for reasons such as promoting child well-being and a healthy development. The central target of inquiry of this study was thus to explores the three primary perspectives that interconnect in the…

How preschool teachers and children spend their time in preschool sets the stage for child engagement and learning. To describe characteristics of environments and activities and to compare child engagement in indoor and outdoor free play, systematic observations of children and teachers were performed in 78 Swedish preschool units. Results showed…

This study aims to answer the question of how pupils' participation is acted within the context of Swedish leisure time centres (LTCs) through the analysis of ethnographic material from five different LTCs. The analysis took a grounded theory approach, and the results show that pupils' participation in LTCs can be seen as an ongoing negotiation…

Early reading and writing skills are important in order to develop and succeed, both in school and later on in life. The aim of this study was to shed light on influential factors on children's reading and writing development from the perspective of parents. Bronfenbrenner's bioecological model for human development was adopted as a theoretical…

This study explores how 3-5 year-old children negotiate participation rights during peer play in a preschool in Sweden. The interest is on how they build relations moment-by-moment. I specifically analyze how they negotiate participation rights with a focus on how they include and exclude each other in the ongoing activity. This is an ethnographic…

This paper presents an exploratory study of English and Swedish teachers' perspectives on the role of parents in year one children's learning of number. Drawing on the results of semi-structured interviews, data from each cohort were analysed independently to ensure the cultural integrity of any response categories and the results of this process…

The purpose of the present study is to investigate how preschool teachers see their interaction with the home. The empirical material consists of semi-structured interviews with 30 qualified preschool teachers working in Swedish preschools. The informants describe how they promote cooperation and prevent conflict by clarifying that parents'…

The website of the Swedish National Agency for Education states that preschools are to promote entrepreneurial learning. Many Swedish preschools, therefore, have started to work consciously with entrepreneurial learning as a way of fostering pupils' creativity and ability to make their own decisions. This article investigates whether and how…

This comparative study investigated the perspectives of preschool teachers in Australia, Denmark, Estonia, German, Greece and Sweden about learning and participation in preschool. A structured survey questionnaire investigated four main questions: What situations can be characterised as learning? What activities are important for learning? What…

This article is based on a collaborative study in Iceland, Sweden and Norway of the youngest children in institutional settings, such as preschools. At the present time, preschool curricula and frameworks are changing to include increased learning. However, preschool teacher education lacks sufficient focus on this age group. New preschool…

This educational science article illustrates education for sustainability in a theme about Earth Hour (energy conservation) in one Swedish preschool. This case study is based on audio recordings of dialogues between children aged five to six years and preschool teachers. It is guided by critical theory, which is also used as a conceptual tool to…

The purpose of this study was to investigate, analyse and describe preschool staff's concepts of children's participation in everyday preschool life, as well as preschool staff's experiences and concepts of what characterises the children who participate. Furthermore, it addresses the conditions that preschool staff consider as crucial in…

In this study we have tried to come close to, and at the same time problematize, what participation in educational practice might be. The overall aim is to study how a toddler's participation can be understood in two kinds of educational activities, where the degree of teacher control differs. The data in this study are video observations of…

Explores attitudes of parents and professionals in Sweden and the United States regarding early childhood programs. Discusses a survey that covered general attitudes, parent involvement, materials, activities, and caregiver actions. (PCB)