The aim of our graduate work is to study the importance of image and shape?s in children's development and learning and also the preschool teacher?s views on image and shapes. Our research aims to explore the value of image and shapes creation and how it is expressed among children and in classroom activities. We are also interested in finding out how it differs from adults' views and what materials teachers use to promote the image and shapes creation in the curriculum. In our own experience, image and shapes activities are often structured differently in different curriculum activities.

Preschool is a place that is continually undergoing change at a rapid pace and developing the skills of our educators is essential for their ability to keep up with these changes. Guidance conversations can be used as a vital tool for the educators competence development.The purpose of this essay is to investigate how educators, special educators and preschool principals think and reason about the use of guidance conversations in preschool.A qualitative method has been used in the shape of interviews with educators, special educators and preschool principals working within different districts of a medium sized city in the south of Sweden.These interviews revealed that the use of guidance conversations is often controlled by specific needs and is used when a problem arises amongst the children. There are many expectations on the special educators role in these conversations, one of which is the role of conversation leader with the purpose of guiding the conversation amongst involved parties and give them the tools they need to resolve problems by themselves instead of delivering packaged solutions..

In Sweden today, more women are still going on parental leave than men. The number of men and women going on parental leave is more equalized than ever before. At the same time the inequalities are still big and more women than men choose to work part time up till the child is eight years old.The aim of the study is through a gender perspective, to investigate the preschool teacher?s thoughts about the daily meetings with parents and the contact during induction. The study is based on the theoretical concepts: gender, norms and gender equality as well as three questions.

The aim of this study is, from a norm-critical approach, to find, investigate and analyse human representation in the visual culture of one preschool in order to understand if the children enrolled are represented or not. The research questions are: In what ways is there imagery of human representations in images and materials designed for play? What skin-colors and origins are dominant in the data collected?We carried out a qualitative study in the form of visual ethnography. This method allowed us to use a combination of different data collection tools such as photography and ethnographic field notes to collect our data. The photographs we took of images and material used for play, was then analysed through semiotic picture analysis.

The purpose of this study is to increase an understanding of what prevents the mandatory reporting law, based on the preschool staff's approach to mandatory reporting law about child abuse and neglect to social services, and how these barriers affect their decision to report. The study will also understand what preschool staff experience facilitates the mandatory reporting process and what can be done to improve the process even more. The questions of the study were based on the purpose of the study and have been formulated in two questions:What prevents the mandatory reporting law requirements for preschool staff and how can these barriers be removed? What facilitates for preschool staff to be confident in the decision to report child abuse and neglect, to social services?The study used qualitative semi-structured interviews with five people working at the preschool, including two preschool teachers and three childcare workers. An interview guide was designed as a help to answer the questions about what the barriers are and what it is that makes it easier for the preschool staff, regarding the decision to report cases of child abuse and neglect to social services.The results, based on the five interviews , shows preschool staff's thoughts of the knowledge on the mandatory reporting law, the mandatory reporting process, their perspective of the mandatory reporting law and the uncertainty surrounding the mandatory reporting law.The study's analysis consists of the results that have been analyzed using the theory of social representations, in which the analysis shows an understanding of how the preschool staff act and think about the mandatory reporting law requirements based on their everyday knowledge.

The purpose of this study is to, from the preschool teachers? point of view, deepen the knowledge about influential factors regarding a mandatory report from preschools to the Child Protective Agency (CPA) when suspecting child maltreatment and feeling uneasiness regarding the child. The purpose is also to furthermore investigate collaboration between preschools and the CPA in Hagfors municipality. The study has the following questions: How do preschools teachers handle their suspicions and uneasiness about a child being maltreated? Which factors can be influential on whether or not the suspicions are reported to the CPA? Which experiences do preschool teachers have of collaboration with the CPA?The study is based on qualitative methods in the formof individual interviews.

My purpose with this study was to research how a few teachers work with the children in preschool class to achieve a group that the children feel safe and comfortable with. Every human being has got the need to feel safe and with this study I want to illustrate the importance about working to achieve safety for children in preschool class, and environment that is new to them. In order to try to get answers to my research questions I have interviewed five preschool class teachers. The results showed that the teachers work in a way that makes the children feel safe by helping them establish the daily routines and common rules for the preschool class. They also let the children in the preschool class get to know each other and other children in the school by play and shared activities.

The aim of the thesis was to better understand how second language learners becomes lingual participants in a Swedish preschool. Using the following research questions: In what situations are SLLs lingual participants at the preschool? What does their emerging language look like? Are the participation any different considering children's time in the new L2 context? What kind of support does SLLs receive at the preschool?Two focal children at the same preschool was studied with ethnography of communication as method. The focal children chosen were one girl (Mandarin L1, 4.0 yrs) who arrived to Sweden and started the preschool two months ago at the time of the study, the other a boy (Serbian L1, 3.9 yrs) who started preschool and learning the L2 one year and two months before the study. Situations where the focal children interacted with other children or adults were analyzed. Results showed that the focal children in interaction with each other understands some of the others intentions before being able to speak about them in the L2.

The purpose of this study is to increase an understanding of what prevents the mandatory reporting law, based on the preschool staff's approach to mandatory reporting law about child abuse and neglect to social services, and how these barriers affect their decision to report. The study will also understand what preschool staff experience facilitates the mandatory reporting process and what can be done to improve the process even more. The questions of the study were based on the purpose of the study and have been formulated in two questions:What prevents the mandatory reporting law requirements for preschool staff and how can these barriers be removed? What facilitates for preschool staff to be confident in the decision to report child abuse and neglect, to social services?The study used qualitative semi-structured interviews with five people working at the preschool, including two preschool teachers and three childcare workers. An interview guide was designed as a help to answer the questions about what the barriers are and what it is that makes it easier for the preschool staff, regarding the decision to report cases of child abuse and neglect to social services.The results, based on the five interviews , shows preschool staff's thoughts of the knowledge on the mandatory reporting law, the mandatory reporting process, their perspective of the mandatory reporting law and the uncertainty surrounding the mandatory reporting law.The study's analysis consists of the results that have been analyzed using the theory of social representations, in which the analysis shows an understanding of how the preschool staff act and think about the mandatory reporting law requirements based on their everyday knowledge.

The aim of this essay was to investigate how teachers in the preschool class work with literacy. How do they justify the methods used to develop children's literacy abilities? I also wanted to know to what extent teachers enable multimodal approaches within written language practices. My study considers the impact teachers' professional identity has on working methods in the preschool class. I hope this essay will help teachers reflect on their learning approach. I gathered information by interviewing three preschool teachers and one compulsory school teacher for the early years working in three different preschool classes in three different schools.

My goal in this study was to research how teachers with education in pedagogical drama think about drama and how to use it as an educational tool. The method I used to acquire the results was by interviews. In total I interviewed six different teachers which had some kind of education in pedagogical drama. This study revealed that all the teachers in some way used educational drama in preschool. The purpose with educational drama is to improve the children's fantasy, creativity, empathy, self-awareness and also their ability to co-operate with other children.

The purpose of this study is to investigate what knowledge children in preschool have about recycling, and to examine how teachers work with environmental efforts to increase children's understanding of environment and sustainable development. And if there is differs between the two preschool classes, one of which has a environmental profile. The study is based on qualitative semi-structured interview methods of teachers and children, and observation of the children during a sorting exercise with a number of garbage objects. The result shows that teachers in the environment profiled preschool spend more time per week on work related to environmental and natural issues and worked more thematic. Similarity between this preschool classes is that the use of outdoor education to get into environmental awareness.

The topic of this paper is puppets as an educational tool in preschool. The purpose of this paper is to examine the puppets potential as a tool for creating pleasurable learning in preschool. The method of collecting material for the essay has been qualitative research interviews with four informants. The prerequties for writing this essay has been good. There has been some literature on puppets and basis for my investigation, there have been informants with experience of puppets.

The aim of this study is to examine how preschools contribute to the forming of identity in children, with a specific focus on the quiet and socially withdrawn child. How do the teachers describe the quiet child and the socially withdrawn child? Are there any opportunities for children to be quiet/withdrawn in preschools? These questions have also been analysed from a gender perspective. The method chosen is qualitative method. Nine preschool teachers from two Swedish preschools have been interviewed.

Children at the age of six, has since 1991 been allowed to start their tuition in the Swedish school system. Studies reveal that; the first school year (preschool) can be a stressful task dueto the new environment, new friendships and higher expectations.The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze how the teachers perceive their own role in the transitioning process from preschool to school. This purpose required a method of qualitative complexion and therefore qualitative interviews were used. The material is based on four interviews with four different teachers. The teachers were asked the same question considering; the transition from preschool to school from a pupil point of view, their own role in that transition and their opinions on different educational tools.