Pedagogiska miljöer och barns subjektskapande

Abstract

The main purpose of the study is to provide perspectives and contribute to the discussion about how children´s identities and subjectivity are made in pre-schools and schools; both how children look upon and understand themselves in the educational context and how they are perceived and described by others. The intentions have been to open possibilities to regard the educational environment as an important condition for children´s behaviour and doings and thus as conditions for their level of performance and for the identity that is ascribed to each child.The study is framed within a postmodern, or constructionistic, perspective. Through what is called the postmodern “linguistic turn” the dominant psychological focus on children´s characteristics, “inner” world and earlier experiencies could move towards a focus on concepts, theories and pedagogical practices as decisive of how children are seen and described.The first part of the study focuses on the organization of time, space and materials in preschools and classrooms. The analyses indicate that the materials for children´s activities and learning are relatively sparse and limited, with small variations and little materials that can be seen as easy to concentrate on and that catch and keep children´s attention. The regulations of time and space can be seen as surprisingly strong. Rooms and materials are strongly classified and framed. This indicates a small space in terms of children´s influence and demands a great deal of adaptation of each child. Historically this way of organizing pedagogical environments seems dominant in the Swedish tradition during the 2000th century.The second part focuses on different theoretical understandings of child – environment relations. The purpose is firstly to understand the strong tendency to individualize children´s behaviour and what happens in pre-schools and classrooms – despite the dominant theories of interactionism. This is accomplished by investigating the central theoretical concepts “individual”, “identity” and “development” as constituted within the Western modernistic tradition and as carrying meanings that individualize the relation between child and environment. Secondly the purpose is to create a theoretical space tounderstand children´s behaviour, performances and identities as changing and as inseparable of actual environments and situations. This is accomplished by using poststructural theories of subjectivity and the individual´s relation to the environment.The uniform and homogenous environment restricts children´s different ways to create meaningfulness and to relate positively to affordances and educational tasks. This increases the risks of exclusion and that more children are perceived as failing and deviating. A prerequisite for children´s diversities and variations to be acknowledged and accepted is that also pre-schools and classrooms are characterized by diversity and variation.

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