Maj Asplund Carlsson

The Playing Learning Child: Towards a pedagogy of early childhood

From childrens own perspective, play and learning are not always separate in practices during early years. The purpose of this article is, first, to scrutinise the background and character of early years education in terms of play and learning. Second, to elaborate the findings of several years of research about childrens learning in preschool related to the curriculum of early years education and, finally, to propose a sustainable pedagogy for the future, which does not separate play from learning but draws upon the similarities in character in order to promote creativity in future generations. Introducing the notions of act and object of learning and play (by act we mean how children play and learn and with the object we mean what children play and learn) we will chisel out an alternative early childhood education approach, here called developmental pedagogy, based on recent research in the field of play and learning, but also related to earlier approaches to early education.

The art of teaching children the arts: music, dance and poetry with children aged 2–8 years old

In this article, the theoretical framework of developmental pedagogy is presented as a tool in studying and developing children’s knowing within the arts. The domains of art focused on are music, poetry and dance/aesthetic movement. Through empirical examples from a large‐scale research project, we illustrate the tools of developmental pedagogy and show how this perspective contributes to our understanding of children’s learning of music, dance and poetry. More specifically, we will analyse: (a) the important role of the teacher in children’s learning within the arts; (b) the importance of conversing when learning the arts; (c) what constitutes the knowledge, what we refer to as ‘learning objects’, to be appropriated within the three domains of art focused on; and (d) how to conceive of progression in children’s knowing within the arts.

Rhyme and Reason: Developing Children's Understanding of Rhyme

In this study, an extensive episode of teachers working with the intention of developing childrens understanding of rhyme is analysed. The data for the analysis consist of a video-recording of two teachers and seven children (aged 3–5 years) working with a type of rhyme-card and trying to construct a poem. The analytical interest lies in the opportunities that the teachers provide children to develop a notion of rhyme. The result shows that what a rhyme is to large extent remains implicit in the talk. The critical distinction between a relation between words based on sound (i.e. a rhyme) and a relation between words based on sense also remains unverbalized. This means that while some children may discover this distinction themselves through participating in this activity and encountering a variety of examples, a child who has not understood this difference is not actually helped to do so. Relevance and implications of this study to the practice of preschool are briefly discussed.

Performativity as pretence : A study of testing practices in a compulsory school in Sweden

Our aim in this article is to analyse the impact of the standardised test on classroom practices in grade 5 in a compulsory school in western Sweden. In our analysis, the use of the concept of the pedagogical device (Bernstein 1996) provides a framework for understanding how high-stakes, standardised testing regulates classroom discourse and teachers’ and students’ classroom behaviours. The study was conducted during 2006–2007 as part of a larger ethnographic inquiry. The results reveal how the demands of the test impact upon the daily work in the classroom. In the neo-liberal approach to governance, standardised tests have become an important measure of quality. School practices run the risk of being viewed as valuable, only relative to the performance of teachers and students at the individual level. This view shifts the focus from a discussion about a societal responsibility to ensure that all children have equitable access to education, to a debate centred on the individuals responsibility to perform. The analysis reveals that the test was not carried out as intended. However, both teacher and the students respond to the test situation and the results as if it had been and as if the test really mattered.

A Mother and a Friend: Differences in Japanese and Swedish Mothers' Understanding of a Tale.

A narrative like The Giving Tree can be interpreted in various ways by readers from different cultures depending on differences in life-world apprehension. The study asked 193 Swedish and 344 Japanese mothers about what they felt as they heard this tale, what the tale was about and what children could learn from the tale. The responses were analysed according to the phenomenographic method. Six qualitatively different conceptions were found, describing some kind of relation. The categories were related to differences in age, where differences between Japanese mothers indicate a change in Japanese society. The categories are also related to differences in cultural background. Japanese mothers see a hierarchical relation, Swedish mothers see a mutual relation. A comparison between Swedish children and mothers show striking similarities. Finally, differences in interpretations can be related to differences in Japanese and Swedish childrens life-worlds.

The Reverse Effect of an Attempt to Shape Reader Awareness

Abstract In a previous study, Marton et al. (1992) asked Hungarian and Swedish secondary school students to read Franz Kafkas parable Before the Law several times. Rereading the text several times did not in itself improve or alter the students’ understanding of it. We found, however, that a more complex and advanced way of understanding the text was highly correlated with a certain way of reading; that is, in the use of a reflective variation. In order to determine whether it is possible to elicit reflective variation in readers and affect their awareness of alternative ways of understanding the parable, by giving explicit instructions, we conducted a new experiment in Sweden. The procedure for this experiment was designed with the aim of eliciting a variational reading and a more advanced understanding of the text. This procedure, however, created a strong reverse effect. Paradoxically, the variation in the readers’ understanding of Kafkas parable was dramatically reduced. The attempt to encourage rea...

Writing for life? A case study of affordances of writing in four L1 upper secondary classrooms.

During the period of 1994-2011 all programmes in Swedish upper secondary school comprised a set of core subjects with the aim to entail equity on the policy level. However, a division between progr ...