From activity to transdisciplinarity and back again – preschool teachers’ reasoning about pedagogical goals

ABSTRACT

This study presents an analysis of preschool teachers’ reasoning about pedagogical goals. Of specific interest is how teachers in a Swedish and a Finnish context describe goals for children’s learning and how they describe them implementing these goals into their practice. The research question is thus: How are pedagogical goals perceived and enacted, in the thematic-oriented and play-based pedagogical practice of preschool? In-depth interviews were conducted with six preschool teachers, of which three expressed learning goals guiding their pedagogical work. The Variation Theory of learning is the guiding principle throughout the analysis, and reveals indirect and direct objects of learning and content for learning described by the three teachers. A deeper analysis of the features of these provides a comprehensive picture of pedagogical goals that are intertwined and move between activity goals, working goals and transdisciplinary goals. These results contribute to our understanding of the characteristics of preschool pedagogy and the complex pedagogical practice preschool entails.

KEYWORDS:

• Early childhood education
• goals
• objects of learning
• preschool pedagogy
• preschool teachers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.