This paper explores how digital competence and digital technology are addressed in Norwegian early childhood teacher education (ECTE). The aim is to provide a national overview of the ECTE institutions' programme and relevant course plans to identify how the preservice teachers are being prepared for their future professional life as digitally…

This paper is the first in a series of three studies that explore the pedagogy used in the Norwegian and Russian early childhood settings by examining texts that are part of the syllabus in two early childhood teacher education programs that participated in our project with student international exchanges. The study explores how Mikhail Bakhtin's…

Reform in higher education is on the agenda worldwide, and there is increasing political interest in the content of study programmes. This article looks at the policy process leading to the new national curriculum regulation (NCR) for kindergarten teacher education (KTE) in Norway in 2012. The following questions derived from Kingdon's Multiple…

Bullying-related phenomena are reported as growing problems in early childhood education and care (ECEC), which calls for structures for teachers' handling of these problems. Using an approach that emphasises bullying as a social, socially situated and contextual phenomenon, we investigate how such an approach can facilitate a positive change in…

This article focuses on student teachers' professional development and explores how the students connect theory and practice in these processes. Data consist of 17 talks during weekly seminars with 15 preschool student teachers and a group of researchers both at campus and at the practicum placements during their first term. Initially, the…

In this paper, the objective is to explore the area of pedagogy in the reform of kindergarten teacher education (KTE), which was implemented in 2013 in Norway. The data material is based on semi-structured interviews with 41 educators from six focus groups, and is analysed with a hermeneutical approach. The main findings is presented in three…

Children begin learning about gender stereotypes as early as age two. The pre-primary education system does not always deliver on its potential to tackle and address harmful gender stereotypes while they are being absorbed by the youngest learners. All components of the pre-primary system have a role to play in breaking down these stereotypes.…

This paper uses scaffolding theory to examine structures surrounding Norwegian preschool student teachers on placement in India. Through a case study involving a teacher-training programme in Norway, we explore the extent to which learning outcomes from international placements in a foreign cultural context depend on scaffolding structures. Using…

This article examines the stability of Norwegian prospective preschool teachers' enjoyment of mathematics and their mathematics-related self-efficacy before, during, and after a teacher-education examination. In addition, the stability of the two constructs across countries was examined through a comparison with Germany. The data revealed partial…

The most important benefits of international comparisons are the indications that make hidden national characteristics visible and shed new light on the system in each country. From a comparative perspective, this article explores what Swedish and Norwegian preschool teachers emphasise as important to preschool student teachers about preschool as…

This paper reports on student experiences with an interdisciplinary project entitled "The Difficult Conversation", the aim of which was to develop professional competences linked with parental cooperation in heterogeneous social contexts, ethical reflection, pedagogical tact, and judgment skills. Student experiences with the project were…

This paper investigates an institutional practice of the educational conversation that is a part of the undergraduate kindergarten teacher education program at a Norwegian university. The formal goal connected to this practice is to facilitate students coping with their courses of study. Thus, this paper reconstructs the perspectives of the…

With this study we have a twofold aim. Firstly, to develop a model for identifying and analyzing the status of students' scholarly thinking, and secondly to design and evaluate an educational practice with the aim of supporting these skills. A series of webinars connected researchers and students from Finland, Norway and Sweden and gave the…

To maintain team learning for assistants in preschools, dialogue and group discussions are important. These dialogues and discussions can happen both as a part of spontaneous supervision and as a part of an organized process of supervision. Bakhtinian theory of understanding and its notion of dialogue could be used to organize supervision of…

This article uses the concept of 'superdiversity' as a lens through which various conceptualisations of diversity in Norwegian early childhood education and care policies and professionals' understandings are made visible. Although Norwegian early childhood education and care is expected to highlight, value, and promote diversity and mutual…