This study explores the extended demands for writing in the Swedish public service sector of early childhood and how academic writing in the higher education programmes aimed at professional work in that sector is perceived to be of value for early childhood practice among practitioners. Empirical data was collected in individual interviews and…

The aim of this study is to explore how cultural factors interact with preschool teachers' shaping of activities with science content, and also how Activity Theory (AT) as a theoretical framework can be useful for examining interrelations within preschool systems. Qualitative data was collected from three preschools in the form of guided group…

This article reports a study of educators differentiating aspects of mathematical knowledge for teaching in preschool as part of a further-education programme. Eight Swedish preschool educators participated in focus group discussions about documentations from their own practice during a school year, to enhance their awareness of their mathematics…

During the past decade, early childhood teachers have been faced with new needs to develop their content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for different science subject areas. In order to meet these challenges there is a strong need for professional learning programmes for early childhood teachers that focus on the development of…

The aim of this article is to describe how parents and preschool teachers talk about children's interactional skills in parent-teacher conferences in the Swedish preschool and how this can be related to socialization processes. The analyses show that children's communicative skills, such as turn-taking in conversation and co-operation, are…

This article focuses on aspects of the notion of care in relation to the work of quality documentation in the Swedish preschool. Questions deal with how teachers enact pedagogy in relation to the documentation work; how they handle the demands of visibility; and which aspects of the teacher profession are exposed and which are silenced. Data…

This article reports on student preschool teachers' views of science and its role in preschool. Three cohorts of students have been given a written questionnaire with open-ended questions before and after a one-semester course including science (specifically Chemistry and Physics) in a 3.5-year preschool teacher programme in Sweden. The science…

Developing a sense of belonging and experiences about the value of community are important democratic values that children may learn during play in preschool. Through the different ways that teachers' interact with children during play, children can learn about democratic values. This study is part of a Nordic project on values education in early…

There is today an increasing global interest in early childhood education, especially with regard to curriculum and quality work. The aim of this article is to study preschool teachers' and child care workers' views on the revised national curriculum for preschool in Sweden (Lpfö 98, rev. 2010), and if the educators perceive that they can conduct…

This study aimed to identify the ways in which information and communication technologies (ICT) are integrated in three preschools in south-western Sweden. The case study involved observations of and interviews with preschool teachers. The findings support claims that ICT can enhance preschool practices by providing a variety of complementary…

Child engagement has been defined as active participation in classroom routines, appropriate interactions with the environment and it also predicts academic achievement. Therefore, it is necessary to identify predictors of engagement over time. Moreover, cross-cultural data is needed to provide a global picture of the quality of Early Childhood…

The purpose of this article is to study and analyse how a teacher implements an outdoor realistic problem situation for children aged 4-5 in a Swedish preschool. By an "outdoor realistic problem situation", I mean a situation initiated by a teacher in which children come into contact with mathematical concepts and in which the outside…

The use of freely-available web-based materials in professional development has rarely been investigated in mathematics education research. In this article, the responses to a survey by 267 preschool teachers about their use of online professional development materials are described. The web materials were based on a design model and the survey…

This study uses observations and interviews to investigate how the leadership at three Swedish preschools in Sweden has impacted the didactic choices made. Two of these preschools use music as a tool for stimulating language and social development, while the third preschool serves as a comparison. The inspiration that the leadership has brought to…

This article describes the process of a learning study conducted in technology education in a Swedish preschool class. The learning study method used in this study is a collaborative method, where researchers and teachers work together as a team concerning teaching and learning about a specific learning object. The object of learning in this study…