In Sweden preschool embraces children from one to five years of age and constitutes the first step of the educational system. Despite a long preschool tradition we have limited knowledge of the constitution of preschool quality and its effects on children’s learning. The overall intentions of the study, Children’s early learning in preschool are to study variations of preschool environments and the effects these have on children’s knowledge formation. Questions at issue are: What characterizes preschool as a learning environment? What do children learn in different preschool contexts? How is different quality aspects constituted and related to one another? This paper focus on evaluations of preschool quality in relation to the perspectives of teachers’ and parents’ view on quality and children’s learning. The study is based on Interactionistic perspectives (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1986; Bruner, 1996) and a pedagogical perspective of quality (Sheridan, 2001, 2007). The cognitive, social and emotional aspects of children’s development cannot be separated as they constitute an integrated whole where children learn by experiencing, acting and communicating with the environment, which in turn interacts with them in various ways (Marton & Both, 1997; Pramling, 1994; Säljö, 2000). The ecological framework of Bronfenbrenner (1979, 1986) explains how micro-systems (family), meso-systems (preschool) and macro-systems (economic and social policies) of cultures and societies influence and affect children’s learning. All systems interact with one another and must be taken into consideration to fully understand children’s experiences of and possibilities for learning in preschool. An interactive perspective of pedagogical quality in an educational setting means that the level of quality depends not only on how the environment is constituted to meet, extend and challenge the experience and intentions of children, but also on how they can influence and form both the overall environment and their own learning process (Sheridan, 2001).

From a stratified sample, eight geographical areas in Gothenburg were chosen to represent a variety in living conditions, ethnical and socio-economic backgrounds. Within these areas a random sample of 38 preschools were selected. In these preschools all of the children (230) at the ages 1 and 2 years of age, their parents and the teachers (120) participated. To grasp the complexity of pedagogical quality as an educational phenomenon and the relationship between preschool quality and children’s learning new approaches and methods were developed. External and self-evaluations of quality were conducted with a revised version of the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS) (Harms & Clifford, 1980). Questionnaires to teachers and parents were developed and was related to one another and to the preschool quality. The evaluations of quality with ECERS and the questionnaires to the teachers and the parents were statistically analyzed with SPSS.

Results show that the variation of quality between the preschools is considerable. The external evaluations of preschool quality with ECERS have a mean value of 4.44 with a range of 2.90 – 6.24 (1.00 – 7.00 = min-max). The mean value for the self-evaluations are 5.19 with a range from 3.41-7.00. Teachers in preschools externally evaluated as having a low quality value their own preschool quality higher than the external evaluator, while it is the other way round for teachers in preschools evaluated as having a high quality. The perspectives of preschool quality and children’s learning differ between and among the parents and the teachers. The results generate knowledge that are of importance to research on early childhood education on both a national and international level as it gives new knowledge about the relation between teachers’ and parents’ perspectives and variation in preschool quality.