This paper addresses national concern about teaching in preschool, building on the challenges, opportunities, and requirements facing today's preschools due to the higher expected level of preschool assignments. The aim is to build knowledge of how preschool teachers and managers from 10 Swedish municipalities characterise preschool teaching. The material was generated in a 2016 survey completed by 243 respondents (91% response rate). A didactics-oriented textual analysis referred to Kansanen's (1993). An outline for a model of teachers' pedagogical thinking. In P. Kansanen (Ed.), Discussions on some educational issues IV. Research report 121. Helsinki, Finland: University of Helsinki) three-level schema comprising the action, theoretical, and meta-theoretical levels and the results identify 8 distinctive traces ranging from the rejection to the recognition of preschool teaching. Recognition traces emphasise wide-ranging, diffuse, and child-centred teaching. The results indicate that traces of the action level are more prominent and "multivocal" than are traces of the theoretical and metatheoretical levels. Overall, the combined analytical results support the concept of diffuse multivocal teaching.

Identifierat problem är inriktat på undervisning i relation till omsorg och lärande, eller med andra ord vad den så kallade ”helheten” i policydokument kan innebära och hur den kan framträda i förskolans undervisning. Det finns ett underskott av forskning som belyser området utifrån mer omfattande empiriska studier i samverkansprojekt. Syftet är att, med koppling till ett samverkansprojekt, utveckla kunskap om vad som kan känneteckna undervisning i relation till omsorg och lärande i förskollärares texter och dokumenterade samhandlingar i förskola som skolform i Sverige. Metodologiskt refererar analysen till abduktiv analys i didaktiskt perspektiv. Materialet inkluderar totalt 349 skriftliga dokument och 63 filmtimmar från 121 förskolor/avdelningar i tio kommuner. Källdata utgörs av ord-data och audiovisuella data. Resultatet visar att begreppen undervisning, omsorg och lärande kan framträda som både åtskilda och sammanflätade på olika sätt. Sammantaget fogas analysen samman och prövas genom det övergripande begreppet ”flerstämmig undervisning” som kan inrymma ”didaktisk (o)takt”.

The aim is to describe and discuss documentation and assessment practices in Swedish preschools from a didaktik perspective. What different forms of documentation and assessment are found in the preschools? Preschools in both urban and rural municipalities are included in the selection. Document and textual analysis are used. A varied multi-documentation emerge. The multi-documentation at each preschool expose that preschool teachers seem to switch between different forms of documentation and assessment, including summative, formative and other assessments. The concept of transformative assessment may capture the different assessments interwoven in the multi-documentation. Transformative assessment is a concept focusing on reshaping and interplaying assessments that are intertwined in the registration and complex documentation at different levels and directions.

Abstract:The article is based on a project intended to further develop understanding of similarities and differences in Nordic binding guidelines and non-binding guidance for content and quality in early childhood education. The study is of a descriptive and comparative nature and the process is based on a research tradition connected to curriculum studies. Both variation and standardisation emerge in the comparative analysis with regard to content construction. Quality is expressed and may be interpreted as operationalised as both structure and process. In relation to the study results, quality may be interpreted as primarily oriented towards institutions, activities and secondarily towards individuals. Quality is consistently related to learning (lifelong learning) and is more linear and oriented towards goal-rationality than non-linear.

Since teaching in Swedish preschool was regulated in the Education Act 2010, preschool teachers have appeared to struggle with the concept of “teaching” in their day-to-day practices. This paper is based on a collaborative R&D programme involving preschool teachers and researchers aimed to build knowledge of what can characterize teaching in preschool. The research was carried out in 40–44 preschools/preschool departments in eight municipalities in Sweden between 2018 and 2020. The method was based on a praxiographic approach where preschool teachers tried out different theory-informed teaching arrangements, including didaktik, variation-theory, post-structural gateway and pragmatic perspective. The material for the article consisted of 350 co-plans, 305 co-evaluations and 35 hours of video. Analysis was based on a didaktik premise and can be methodologically described in terms of abductive analysis. Theory-informed teaching arrangements have been tried out and shown to support teachers in conducting teaching in the complex reality that is based on scientific grounds and proven experience. In summary, the analysis is merged in a communicable entity through the concept of “multivocal didaktik modelling.”