Wanting to Achieve Something Together With Others—A Narrative Study

Abstract

This study is about two educators (tutors) who are responsible for management and development in a preschool and their accounts in connection with the project "Metamorphosis: Children, Educators, Companies, and Local Municipality in Collaboration for a Sustainable Development". The project is based on a philosophy concerning children, citizenship, and the preschool as a place of sharing values and doing democracy, which posits that cooperation within a local municipality could be a way to contribute towards sustainable development. Surplus materials from companies are being put to use, and work done in co-operative efforts among participants of varying ages is seen as a part of "lifelong learning". The objective of this study is to highlight the meaning and importance of "conveying of identity" the educators place on themselves in their work as tutors in doing democracy. Ultimately, the study is expected to contribute to the knowledge of the tutorial work of educators in connection with this project.It is a narrative study, taking a social constructional perspective, based on the principle that meaning and significance are created through linguistic communication in a certain cultural and historical context. The empirical material consists of the two educators' own "reflecting diaries" and interviews focusing on the significance the pedagogues put on themselves in this context. Data collection was carried out over the course of one year. The preliminary result of the study is a meta-story titled "Wanting to Achieve Something Together With Others", which relates Sara's accounts, and "Cooperation and I" based on Annika's story. The educators' shared philosophy concerning children, citizenship, and doing democracy seems to play an important part in their reflections and in the significance they attribute to themselves.