The article examines how migrant children in Sweden are fostered to become ‘Swedish’ in a preschool setting aiming to integrate them and their families into the Swedish society. The analysis, where Bernstein’s (1971, 2000) concepts of classification, framing, and reconceptualization are used, shows how the children are fostered against a background of everyday nationalism, produced in preschool curriculum, recontextualized in the talk of the educators and reproduced in everyday routines in the preschool setting. The analysis also shows how the image of the rich and competent child, emphasized in Swedish policy documents and the national child centred pedagogy, does not apply to children constructed as the ‘other’. Instead, a controlled pedagogy aiming to compensate for something perceived as lacking in the children is legitimized.

The present study reports an empirical investigation into concept formation of young children. Based on interviews conducted before and after participating in a playfully enacted chemistry lesson at a culture center, it is analyzed how 6-year-old children conceptualize water, molecule, and chemistry. Theoretically, the study is informed by Vygotsky’s cultural-historical perspective on concept formation. The empirical data consist of pre- and post-interviews with children and documentation of their participation in the intermediate activity. This documentation is used in the post-interviews as a mutual ground for talking with the children about what they remember and how they understand the activity they participated in and what the activity intended to illustrate. The results are presented in terms of three inductively generated categories: ‘everyday’, ‘experientially-based’, and ‘generalized experiences’ concepts, respectively. The implications of these findings for early childhood chemistry (science) education are discussed.

The study described in this paper concerns science education in preschool, more specifically how young children in preschool settings invent, develop and explore science and scientific concepts in problem-solving and communicative situations. The aim of the paper is to discuss young children´s concept creation and draw conclusions for early science education. The method used was a secondary analysis of empirical material drawn from three previous studies carried out by the authors. Examples of preschool children’s use of language were extracted and was, for the purpose of this study, analyzed with a new focus on children’s use of concepts. The re-analysis draws from Vygotsky’s theoretical framework on children’s conceptual development and appropriation of new concepts (Vygotsky, 1934/1999; Åkerblom 2011) and from the later Wittgenstein (1986) on the role of language meaning in understanding. The findings underline the importance of allowing preschool children to invent, develop and explore science and technology concepts, as well as implications for preschool teachers to create dialogic spaces for the children to do so. The limitations of the study are however that it is based on a limited number of examples and even though it can give implications and point out directions, is not conclusive and should be followed by further research.

This study focuses on preschool class children and grade one pupils’ questions about the natural sciences. The article presents the questions that preschool class children and grade one pupils asked via a chat function in connection with a digital interactive lesson about molecules arranged by a culture center in Sweden. The results of the thematic analysis are discussed in relation to their didactic implications for natural science teaching with young learners. The most relevant conclusions are that children drew from their own experiences when approaching molecules, they could generalize their experiences and apply them to other contexts, and they needed time to process the content and then ask questions. Therefore, the authors suggest the use of children’s questions as a useful pedagogical tool for helping young children understand abstract concepts such as molecules. Furthermore, follow-up interviews with children are suggested as a means of mapping the origin of such questions.

In this study, we discuss dramatizing as a form of play-responsive teaching in early childhood education. Based on empirical observation, the purpose of the study is to contribute to knowledge-building through offering possibilities for children to make sense of scientific knowledge by engaging in mutual fantasizing about certain fundamental processes and concepts in chemistry. The empirical foundation consists of interviews conducted with eleven 6-year-old children after they had participated in a workshop at a culture center for children where they dramatized certain chemistry concepts and processes. Theoretically, dramatizing is understood as role play in an imaginary dimension (as if) and learning is conceptualized in terms of the appropriation of cultural tools and practices. Based on our analysis, we argue that central to dramatizing (and in general, play-responsive teaching) is how participants distinguish, relate and shift between engaging with the phenomena and the processes of as if and as is.

The aim of this chapter is to reflect on and problematise some of the collective processes that emerged in a 3-year participatory project. The project, situated in a linguistically and culturally diverse neighbourhood of a major Swedish city, was carried out between 2017 and 2019. The overall aim was to, in collaboration with participants, explore the conditions for early childhood education in a migrating world by identifying the challenges facing preschool institutions. An additional aim was to develop preschool practice through reflection and action. The project started out in an introductory unit for immigrant children aged 3–5 years who spoke little or no Swedish upon entering the unit; then, as the project went on, the whole preschool was gradually included in actions carried out in collaboration. Some of the spaces for action that opened up for the children, educators, and preschool managers are addressed in the chapter. Challenges involved, among other things, differences in the possibility to take part in action research processes among families involved in asylum processes and what space for action the preschool educators were actually afforded in the project.