Teaching and learning in age-homogeneous groups versus mixed-age groups in the preschool – the Swedish example

Abstract

The study presented in this article investigates how the curriculum is implemented and transformed by teachers in mixed-age and age-homogeneous groups, the most common age-constellations in the Swedish preschool. The data was collected through groups interviews with preschool teachers. The interviews were transcribed and analysed with the support of thematic analysis and connected to a sociocultural perspective on learning. The findings show that the teachers in the different age formations use both the same and different teaching strategies, which means that the curriculum is implemented and transformed in different ways. The teaching and learning events in the age-homogenous groups appear to be more structured and planned, whereas in the mixed-aged groups the teaching is more spontaneous and embedded in the everyday activities.

Peer interactions during storybook reading on children’s knowledge construction: an experimental study on K2 and K3 children

“…The findings of the three-way mixed ANOVA indicated that children in K2 + K3 groups constructed conservation significantly better than children in K2 groups but not children in K3 groups. This result is partially consistent with the earlier research (Magnusson and Bäckman, 2022), which suggested that older children facilitated the learning of their younger peers in the mixedage group discussions, promoting younger children's higher-order thinking skills and cognitive development. In the meantime, this result partially corroborated the previous studies (White et al, 1976;Basargekar and Lillard, 2021), which argued that there was no difference between mixed-age groups and conventional groups in the conservation construction.…”