Toddlers in Nordic Early Childhood Education and Care

Teaching activities with toddlers: Considerations on theoretical and empirical grounds

“…In this article, we also wanted to provide examples of what teaching with the youngest children could mean, what its characteristic features might be. Our findings, thus, contribute to theoretical accounts of the meaning of teaching with toddlers, something that has been found to be lacking (see Bjørnestad & Pramling Samuelsson, 2012;Greve & Hansen, 2018, for discussions) and only recently starting to emerge in more closely adjacent fields of study (e.g., Alcock, 2016). From the empirical examination of a series of related activities from a preschool, we can conclude that teaching activities -as understood from the theoretical point of view of PRECEC -with toddlers can be characterized by three critical actions by the teacher.…”

“…Another strand of research on toddlers in ECEC concerns what has been labelled "toddling style" (Løkken, 2000) and adults' position towards this (Quiñones & Pursi, 2020), leading to an emphasis on the importance of adults participating in play with children. In other overviews of research on toddlers in preschool, a gap in knowledge is identified concerning didactic questions about the youngest children, and a particular challenge that is identified regards theorizing the relationship between learning and play (Bjørnestad & Pramling Samuelsson, 2012;Greve & Hansen, 2018). In the present study, we will contribute to illuminating didactic questions with our interests in teaching activities and aspects of play.…”

“…In the Swedish preschool curriculum, only recently has teaching been emphasized as a task for preschool teachers (SKOLFS, 2018(SKOLFS, :50, 2018), even if it has been stated in the Educational Act since 2010 (SFS 2010:800). Sweden follows the so-called Nordic model, which means having a unified system of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) that does not separate between childcare and preschool (Greve & Hansen, 2018). That teaching is incorporated in the preschool curriculum therefore means that teaching is meant to be an activity for all children, for the 4-6-year-olds as well as for the 1-3-year-olds.…”

“…This heated debate is not exclusive to Sweden; it is reportedly prominent not only in other Nordic countries more generally (e.g., Broström, 2017), but also in other parts of the world, e.g., Australia (Fleer et al, 2018). Scholars from different points of departure argue that infants and toddlers have been overlooked in research and that there is a particular lack of knowledge about this age group (Greve & Hansen, 2018). While the relationship between teaching and the child's later schooling provides a background of our discussion, it is imperative to understand that teaching is not exclusive to schooling, or indeed to educational institutions.…”

Developing a Pedagogy of Education for Sustainable Futures: Experiences and Observations from Danish Preschools

“…Structural quality concerns parameters such as staffing levels and staff qualifications, group sizes (Sheridan et al, 2014), physical conditions, availability of digital devices, and aesthetic framing. Process quality concerns didactic reflections, empathic interactions between teachers and children (Bae, 2012; Tomasello & Carpenter, 2007), co-operation between teachers, and planning of activities of the numerous environments for creative play and interaction (Greve & Hansen, 2017). Furthermore, the educational content is a part of the learning environment, so that the didactical quality is also connected to process quality (Drugli et al, 2016).…”