Explanatory pictures and models are frequently used in teaching and learning situations. However, it seems to be simply assumed that they are always beneficial. In this article results from an investigation with 16 Swedish pupils aged 7–9 year are presented based on an analysis that has examined how well this assumption holds up. Concepts from multi-modal theory have been used to investigate how young learners deal with illustrations and text from an early reader booklet about composting domestic refuse. The analysis suggests that expectations that illustrations facilitate the meaning-making of young pupils may be exaggerated. Although the booklet claimed to provide interactive support between image and text most of the examples show pupils ignoring pictures or misinterpreting vital information about composting in both the verbal and non-verbal material. The illustrations did not compensate for the most crucial deficiencies in the written text.

The purpose of the project was to explore how a learning study (LS) based on variation theory could support the development of playful physics learning in early childhood education. The study explored what patterns of variation used during a three-cycle LS challenged and developed children’s ways of discerning why a shadow occurred. The empirical material comprised a screening (n = 7), three video-documented interventions, and 78 individual pre- and post-test interviews (n = 39) at 4 - 5 years old. Three somewhat different patterns of variation were implemented within a playful frame in the three groups. The results indicate low and non/significant improvements in cycle A, somewhat higher and significant improvements in cycle B, and substantially higher and significant improvements in cycle C. The study indicates a promising ability to combine a playful approach with the variation theory perspective to stimulate children’s understanding of a quite advanced scientific phenomenon. The careful process of identifying potential critical aspects, the awareness of the relationship between the whole and its parts, and the concretization of simultaneity are discussed as key aspects of these findings.

The Swedish school system offers curriculum-based early childhood education (ECE) organised as preschool (for 0–5-year-olds) and preschool class (for 6-year-olds). The intention to create a playful and educational environment based on children’s perspectives, interests, and questions is strongly based on historical and cultural traditions. This article develops knowledge of ECE teachers’ approaches to science-learning situations. The study applies a phenomenographic approach. The analysis is based on approximately 9.5 hours of video documentation of teacher-led and child-initiated Swedish ECE science activities. We identified two descriptive categories and four subcategories dealing with science-learning situations: (A) making anything visible, containing the three subcategories (Aa) addressing everyone, (Ab) addressing everything, and (Ac) addressing play and fantasy; and (B) creating a shared space for learning (Ba) addressing common content. These categories are related to how efforts to take advantage of children’s perspectives are interpreted and addressed in educational practice. The article discusses and exemplifies the use of various categories and their potential implications for ECE learning practice.

This article is part of a larger project focusing upon explanatory illustrations that children encounter in pre- and primary school education. The research questions concerned (a) how preschool children make sense of iconic symbols when placing items of refuse on illustrations of refuse bins in a sorting task and (b) what stumbling blocks they encounter when interpreting these symbols. Video data were collected with 30 children between four and five?years of age. From the children?s verbal and non-verbal interactions, four different categories of sense-making were constructed: by material, by object type, by appearance and by function. Three stumbling blocks were identified. The first had to do with giving the symbols a different logical meaning to the intended one; the second related to what materials the different refuse items were made of; the third was being able to stick to one correct way of interpreting each symbol.

Högskolan i Kristianstads deltagare har undersökt trakasserier och mobbning Preventivt arbete mot trakasserier och mobbning vid Högskolan i Kristianstad. Högskolan har en rad dokument som beskriver det förebyggande arbetet samt hantering av incidenter av mobbning och trakasserier. Dokumenten pekar ut på ett övergripande plan vad som är ett acceptabelt bemötande, alla medarbetares ansvar att föra vidare information om risker och/eller incidenter. Högskolan genomför vartannat år en arbetsmiljöenkät för att få en ökad kunskap om arbetstagarnas psykosociala miljö, dvs. för att få veta hur det ser ut i praktiken. Ett oroväckande högt antal anställda upplever sig ha blivit utsatta för hot, våld och trakasserier i anslutning till arbetet. Lika oroväckande, finner gruppen, är det faktum att det är få som pratar med  sin närmaste chef eller gör en formell anmälan. Detta gör att problemet är svårt att definiera, hantera och göra något åt.

Swedish early childhood education (ECE) offers a curriculum-based preschool for children aged one to five, and a preschool class for children aged six years. Activities in these programs have traditionally been based on play and having fun, avoiding structured activities with formal learning objectives. Due to indications that Swedish ECE has failed to use its resources to stimulate children’s learning, the revised ECE curriculum now contains discernible learning objectives. This study analyses the process by which preschool teachers shifted their emphasis when participating in an learning study based on three projects conducted in Swedish ECE practice. In total, 14 preschool teachers, 95 children (2–6-year-olds), and five researchers participated. The objects of learning were: (1) 3D geometrical forms (2–3-year-olds), (2) organic decomposition (4–5-year-olds), and (3) the concept ‘twice as" (6-year-olds). The empirical material comprises 278 pre-, post-, and delayed post-tests, twelve planning meetings, and nine teaching activities. The results indicate that, during the projects, the initial focus on mere play expanded to include a focus on the object of learning. Three modes of change were discerned in how (1) the activities were framed, (2) the learning was perceived, and (3) the learning activities were conducted.

We explored the use of the learning study (LS) model in developing Swedish pre-school science learning. This was done by analysing a 3-cycle LS project implemented to help a group of pre-school teachers (n?=?5) understand their science educational practice, by collaboratively and systematically challenging it. Data consisted of video recordings of 1 screening (n?=?7), 1 initial planning meeting, 3 analysis meetings, 3 interventions, and 78 individual test interviews with the children (n?=?26). The study demonstrated that the teachers were initially uncomfortable with using scientific concepts and with maintaining the children's focus on the object of learning without framing it with play. During the project, we noted a shift in focus towards the object of learning and how to get the children to discern it. As teachers? awareness changed, enhanced learning was noted among the children. The study suggests that the LS model can promote pre-school science learning as follows: by building on, re-evaluating, and expanding children's experiences; and by helping the teachers focus on and contrast critical aspects of an object of learning, and to reflect on the use of play, imagination, and concepts and on directing the children's focus when doing so. Our research showed that the LS model holds promise to advance pre-school science learning by offering a theoretical tool useable to shift the focus from doing to learning while teaching science using learning activities.