Communication between the youngest preschool children is the focus of this essay, primarily on how the children communicate with each other, what they are communicating about and what meaning the communication holds for the children. The aim is to describe and understand communication that takes place in the regional life-world of the preschool between the youngest children in a Swedish preschool.

Video recordings of six preschool children between the ages of 14 and 24 months were made both inside and outside the preschool, at times when the children were able to choose for themselves who to communicate with, in which room to be in and which toy to play with. The focus during the video recordings was naturally occurring situations where these six children communicated with each other. 51 relevant situations were selected for more thorough investigation. These specific situations were chosen because the children’s bodies were directed towards each other and the children were communicating in an intercorporeal way with each other.

In order to describe and understand communication between lived bodies in the regional world of the preschool, a phenomenological study was carried out. In order to deepen the understandings of the empirical data theoretical concepts like life-world, the lived body, the concept of horizons and intercorporeality were used.

The findings indicate five different aspects of what type of meaning communication holds, divided into five themes. These themes are represented by communication as: creation of a shared phenomenon, acknowledging someone, coordination of access to play, coordination of access to place or object, and sharing an already experienced event with someone who was not present.

The findings of the study show the children’s usage of an advanced coordination between the lived bodies of the children, the lived space, the lived time, and the lived relationships. Together the children create, coordinate, and maintain a creation of meaning in which the children structure their participation in the life-world.

Uppsatsen handlar om kommunikation mellan de yngsta förskolebarnen ur ett fenomenologiskt perspektiv. Mer specifikt handlar uppsatsen om hur barnen gör när de kommunicerar med varandra, om vad de kommunicerar och vilket meningsskapande som manifesteras i kommunikationen. Genom en rad olika empiriska exempel synliggörs barnens kommunikation där kroppen och rörelsen är central.

Resultatet visar på de yngsta förskolebarnens kommunikation som ett skapande av en gemensam handling, som ett uppmärksammande av någon annan, som ett samordnande av tillträde till lek, som ett samordnande av tillträde till plats och/eller föremål och som ett delande av någon annans erfarenhet. Detta åstadkommer barnen genom att upprepa varandras gester och koordinera sina handlingar. Resultatet visar att barnen är sensitiva inför varandra och anpassar sin kommunikation utifrån en rad olika förutsättningar.

Uppsatsen riktar sig till förskollärare, forskare och andra som är intresserade av de yngsta förskolebarnens kommunikation. Uppsatsen har finansierats inom ramen för Nationella forskarskolan för förskollärare: Barndom, lärande och ämnesdidaktik (FöFoBa), diarienummer 729-2010-200.

This study aims to contribute knowledge about Swedish preschool managers’ usage of the concept of teaching in preschool. Concept analysis (Koselleck 2004) is carried out, which is supported by the analytical concepts of horizon of expectation and space of experience. The empirical material consists of sound recorded talks and a survey with open questions about teaching in preschool with one follow-up-interview in order to deepen the survey results. The results of the analysis show preschool managers expectations on the staff to starting to use the concept, however, without no radical changes in their practice. Rather, as one manager expressed – it is about to ”gild” the practice. Nevertheless, the study shows that the concept holds a range of tensions, where for example earlier collegial responsibility is challenged by a more divided responsibility. Such tensions enable possible changes in the meaning of the concept as well as changes in preschool practice.

This article explores how preschool teachers, over time, collectively manage teaching as a new part of their mission. The study’s empirical data consist of two related but temporally separated sets of data containing collegial discussions among preschool teachers; talks during a development process and group interviews with the same preschool teachers six months later. Through a theorydriven analysis, using the theoretical concept of teacher agency, different ways of achieving teacher agency are brought into light. When tensions appear, the preschool teachers achieve teacher agency by using professional core values in order to make adjustments, additions or changes to school policy. These professional core values consist of for example, sensitivity to the interests and needs of children, the ambition to perform a pedagogical practice for the greater good of children and the professional tradition of preschool teachers and child minders working together in teams.