School reforms and revised policy documents in Sweden demands changes in practice as well as different attitude and pedagogical content in preschool teachers’ professional learning. There is a need for a shift in thinking about professional learning – based on engagement and agency. The challenge is the movement for preschool teachers being seen as receiver of knowledge to taking the role as an active producer. The concept of professional learning (Timperly 2011) is built on mutual engagement in procedures, tools concepts, language and different ways of acting, in the perspective of children’s, development, play and learning. One approach for enhancing the quality of teaching and learning in preschool is through a partnership between preschool teachers and researchers and one such form of collaboration is “research circles”.  Research circles rest on the need for empowerment in professional development. This paper aims to explore “research circles” as professional learning communities where preschool teachers and researchers meet on a regular basis during one year in a content relation to sustainable development. The main question is: In what ways can participation in a research circle contribute to preschool teachers’ professional learning and the preschool development? The research focused on experiences of participation in research circles and indications in praxis with theoretical basis in Participatory Action Research, PAR (Reason, 1994; Brydon-Miller, Greenwood & Maguire, 2003). The investigation was based on the participant preshool teachers’ documentation and interviews with the preschool teachers. There was a voluntary participation in a group of twelve preschool teachers. Data included the participants’ documentation of circle meetings, interviews and storyline narratives. The analyses explored three bodies of social and educational change for: individuals, teams and organisations. The overall conclusion is that principles taken from participant research has involved a cyclical process with content, which is seen as a tool for preschool teachers professional learning, to become aware of their own practice, to meet issues and challenges in different content such as sustainable development, energy and climate issues and implement improvements in a reflective way. The coupling between the project's formal content in the form of research circles and seminars and local development in the preschool everyday practice stimulate co-operative learning between adults and children that increase knowledge of the content of sustainable development both locally and globally. In the form of such knowledge may we see that children's learning and preschool teachers' professional learning, figuratively honestly, go hand in hand.

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