Parents’ Ideal Type Approaches to Children’s Preschool Pathways

Author(s):

Johanna Lundqvist(presenting / submitting)Annika Axelsson Margareta Sandström

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

14. Communities, Families and Schooling in Educational Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

14 SES 11 B, School Related Transitions across Cultural Contexts

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-24

17:15-18:45

Room:

K3.22

Chair:

Silvie Kucerova

Contribution

It is well known and goes without saying that children’s education and transitions during pre-school age are important for their both immediate and long term development, and it is also known that these early educational transitions are not much studied. In Sweden there is limited knowledge about early educational pathways and learning journeys, in particular from parents’ views.

The aim of the study was to investigate and analyze how a group of parents, of children with and without support needs in preschool and preschool class, describe their children, their children’s learning environments, their children’s educational transitions, and their own cooperation with the staff in preschool and preschool class. Research questions were: How are the children’s characteristics and abilities described? How are the learning environments, the educational transitions between these and the collaboration between home and learning environment described? Are there different parent ideal type approaches when describing the learning environments, the transitions and the cooperation with staff?

It is worth studying parents’ views on children’s education and transition during pre-school age since such a study can contribute with descriptions, insights and implications for those who work in early school years and for policy makers. The study may facilitate their planning of high quality and meaningful early education and care, as well as a stress-free transition both for the children and their parents.

The preschool starts the education system in Sweden (Svensk författningssamling [SFS], 2010:800; Swedish National Agency for Education [SNAE], 2011a). Its task is to complement the home and its mission is to offer children - also those in need of support for different reasons - rich opportunities for play, learning and development, and also to cooperate with the parents. Sweden is ranked as a country with a very high quality preschool for children aged one to five years old. The second step in the Swedish education system is called preschool class (SFS, 2010:800; SNAE, 2011b). It is a school form of its own and shall, like the preschool, offer children – also those in need of support – rich opportunities for play, learning and development, and cooperate with parents. The preschool class is often described as an island between preschool and compulsory first grade. The preschool and preschool class are not compulsory.

A move from preschool to a preschool class can be described as an educational transition between two school forms. At this things change for children (Ackesjö, 2014; Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Lundqvist, 2016). They change learning environment and teacher, and they can also get new classmates. This may create both excitement and concern for the children. Probably their parents go through similar processes. It is not only the child that meets changes. An educational transition between two school forms does not only infer a move, but in addition changes in activities, relationships and roles (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998). Hence, transitions can be understood as “moving into and adjusting to new learning environments” (United Nations Children’s Fund [UNICEF], 2012, p. 8), as rites of passages incorporating a separation phase, a transition phase and an incorporation phase (Garpelin, 2014; van Gennep, 1960) and as milestones in children’s life.

The bioecological model for human development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998) was adopted as a theoretical, conceptual and analytical frame. According to the model, human development are influenced by several interplaying systems (i.e. biosystem, microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem and chronosystem). In the model, proximal processes (e.g. educational activities, routines, interactions and play) in the microsystem, are seen as engines for human development.

Method

This study was related to an ongoing research project entitled Borderlands, bridges and rites of passage – understanding children’s learning journeys from preschool to school which was proceeding from 2012 to 2107 in the context of Sweden and funded by the Swedish Research Council. This study presents a description and analysis of 26 parental perspectives of early learning journeys obtained from the research project. These were collected by the three researchers (authors). A number of preschool classes in Sweden was contacted, asking for parents who were willing to be interviewed. We strived to ensure the enrolment of parents with diverse experiences and contacted also special educators in Sweden, asking for parents (having a child with a disability and special educational needs) who were willing to participate. The sample corresponds roughly to the population in Sweden in the sense that parents with diverse experiences send their children to preschool and preschool class. The parents’ views were collected using retrospective interviews and inspiration was obtained from the life history research approach (Bertaux, 1981; Goodson, 2001; Jepson Wigg, 2015; Perez Prieto, 2006). These were recorded and transcribed. In the interviews, the parents were encouraged to tell about being a parent and to tell about their child, their child’s preschool and preschool class, their collaboration with staff members in preschool and preschool class, and the transition from preschool to preschool class. The analysis of the retrospective life-story oriented interviews was done in three steps. Firstly, a qualitative bioecological content analysis (Lundqvist, Sandström, & Axelsson, forthcoming) was performed. This bioecological analysis technique makes use of central concepts from the bioecological model (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Bronfenbrenner and Morris, 1998). Secondly, the researchers judged, based on the first analysis, (a) whether the parent in question described their child as having special educational needs/being typically developing/ being gifted and talented – in preschool and in preschool class, respectively; (b) whether the parent in question described their child’s preschool and preschool class to be low/partly low and partly high/high in quality; (c) whether the parents described their collaborations with staff members in their children’s preschools and preschool classes as being low/partly low and partly high/high in quality; and (d) whether the parent in question seemed to consider that the transition from preschool to preschool class was low/partly low and partly high/high in quality. Third, the researchers judged, based on the prior analysis whether the parents seemed engaged/disengaged and concerned/unconcerned.

Expected Outcomes

More than half of the children were described as typically developing in preschool as well as in preschool class, and almost a handful of the children were described as gifted and talented during preschool and preschool class. About a fourth of the children had special educational needs in preschool, according to the parents. One of those children who had special educational needs during preschool did not have such needs in preschool class. There were more preschools than preschool classes that were considered to be high in quality. The learning environments of the children with special educational needs commonly were considered to be partly low and partly high in quality. There were also more preschool-home collaborations than preschool class-home collaborations that were experienced as high in quality. The parents to the children with special educational needs commonly experienced their collaborations with staff members as partly low and partly high in quality. The following ideal typical approaches and experiences of the parents emerged in the analysis of the interviews: (1) the engaged and concerned parents; (2) the engaged and unconcerned parents; and (3) the disengaged and unconcerned parents. Thus, no one of the participating parents were regarded as disengaged and concerned. Engagement refers herein to active involvement and commitment, and concern refers to worries, dissatisfaction and discomfort. Hence, being disengaged refers to low levels of active involvement and commitment, and being unconcerned to a sense of harmony. The number of engaged and concerned parents increased from preschool to preschool class. Fifteen per cent of the parents, all having typically developing children, keep their Ideal type from preschool to preschool class, as disengaged and unconcerned.

References

Ackesjö, H. (2014). Barns övergångar till och från förskoleklass: Gränser, identiteter och (dis) kontinuiteter. Avhandling, Linnéuniversitetet, Kalmar. Bertaux, D. (1981). Biography and Society: The Life History Approach in the Social Sciences. SAGE: Studies in International Sociology. Beverly Hills. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Univ. Press. Bronfenbrenner, U., & Morris, P. A. (1998). The ecology of developmental processes. In W. Damon (Series Ed.) & R. M. Lerner (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models for human development (5th ed., pp. 993-1028). New York: John Wiley. Garpelin, A. (2014). Transition to School: A Rite of Passage in Life. In B. Perry, S. Dockett, & A. Petriwskyj (Eds.) Transitions to School - International Research, Policy and Practice. (International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education and Development 9.) Dordrecht: Springer. van Gennep, A.V. (1960). The rites of passage. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Goodson, I. F. & Silkes, P. J. (2001). Life history research in educational settings: Learning from lives. Buckingham: Open University Press Jepson Wigg, U. (2015). Att analysera livsberättelser. I A. Fejes & R. Thornberg (Red). Handbok i kvalitativ analys (2 uppl.). (s. 238-255). Stockholm: Liber. Lundqvist, J. (2016). Educational pathways and transitions in the early school years: special educational needs, support provisions and inclusive education. Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm: Stockholms universitet, 2016. Stockholm. Lundqvist, J., Sandström, M., & Axelsson, A. (forthcoming). A bioecological content analysis and matrix. Pérez Prieto, H. (2006). Erfarenhet, berättelse och identitet. Karlstad: Karlstad University Studies. Swedish National Agency for Education, (SNAE). (2011a). Curriculum for the preschool Lpfö 1998: Revised 2010. Stockholm: Skolverket. Swedish National Agency for Education. (2011b). Curriculum for the compulsory school, pre-school class and the recreation center 2011. Stockholm: Skolverket. Svensk författningssamling, SFS. (2010:800). Education Act. Stockholm. Utbildningsdepartementet. Swedish Research Council. (2011). God forskningssed. Stockholm: Vetenskapsrådet. United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF. (2012). School Readiness. A Conceptual Framework. New York: United Nations Children’s Fund.

Author Information

Johanna Lundqvist (presenting / submitting)

Mälardalen University

Deparment of Special Education

Västerås

Annika Axelsson

Malardalen University

Department of special education

Vasteras

Margareta Sandström

Mälardalen University, Sweden

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