Documentation has become an important issue for policy, practice and accountability in many national contexts. The documentation of children's activities is a requirement in the national syllabus for the Swedish preschool. However, the documentation of children is always a social construction that focuses on certain things and excludes (possible) others. Such constructions can be linked to broader discourses of the competent and self-governed child, and the tendency to label the child as autonomous and competent in policy documents. The purpose of this article is to explore how constructions of the competent and self-governed child are performed in documentation panels in Swedish preschools. The theoretical framework is taken from visual methodology combined with an analysis of intertextuality. Three images (pictures and written text) of the preschool are discerned: the child as a good pal; the child as an autonomous investigator; and the child as a public speaker. In all three images, the children are depicted as competent in different respects. The result is discussed by relating the findings to broader discourses emphasising the competent and self-governed child.

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According to national and international policy, teachers' work is supposed to be guided by reliable evidence in order to be effective and achieve the set goals. The purpose of this article is to problematise evidence-based approaches for teacher education by highlighting the occurrence of dilemmas in teachers' work connected to the assignment of educating democratic citizens. The article is a critical theoretical discussion that takes its departure in the teaching paradox of supporting students' initiatives to act as critical citizens. In order to address the current trend of anchoring teacher education in evidence-based methods, Swedish policy documents are used as a point of reference and are read through the lens of the teaching paradox and the need for teacher judgement. The analysis shows that policy texts fall short when it comes to the assignment to support students to take part in society as critical citizens. It is concluded that teacher education could gain from theoretically based case studies of dilemmatic everyday situations in which teaching for democratic participation is visible.

The paper argues that Swedish preschool teachers tend to be depicted mainly as subjects for policy implementation when it comes to their mission to teach in preschool. Taking the perspective of inside-out-professionalism, the paper aims to make visible how preschool teachers have developed professional knowledge about teaching from within the preschool context. The methodology is based on content analysis of semi-structured interviews with ten experienced preschool teachers. Teaching is defined openly as a conscious arrangement for learning. Dewey’s notions of experience, environment and subject content further informed the interpretation of the results. Two main categories were discerned, both emphasising the experience and active participation of the child: identifying potential subject components in children’s experience, and arranging an environment in which the child becomes a part. Each main category further included two sub-categories. Thus the present issue of implementing teaching in preschool could gain from research on established preschool practice based on inside-out-professionalism and made visible through Dewey’s theorical lens.

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