Abstract
The focus of this article is to explore preschool children’s possibilities to learn to act for sustainable development. The purpose is to describe and analyze which actions are privileged when children participate in preschool activities. Analyses of video recordings of everyday preschool activities show how children experience activities where they critically discuss and make value judgments about actions. The results of the analyses also show how different actions become relevant in different practices. Furthermore, comparisons are made between the preschool practices and three teaching principles within education for sustainable development (ESD). In ESD, action competence is the ability to critically make value judgments about different alternative ways to act for a sustainable future. The result shows how children make value judgments in situations where facts are not sufficient for solving a problem.
Introduction
Even though education for sustainable development (ESD) has become an increasingly important part of preschool (European Panel on Sustainable Development [EPSD], 2010; UNESCO, n.d.), there is still much research to be done in the field (e.g., Ärlemalm-Hagsér, 2013; Davis, 2009). This article contributes to the research by reporting on a study on preschool children’s possibilities to learn to act for sustainable development.
Researchers mainly define ESD in two different ways (Scott & Gough, 2003). On one hand, some researchers focus on the natural environment and stress that education should use curricula both in and about the environment. 1 On the other hand, some stress that economic, social, and environmental dimensions should be included in the curriculum. 2 Even though both perspectives address research questions of moral and political character in some way, the main difference between them could be described as while these questions are included implicitly in the first perspective, the second always try to make them explicit. Important issues for a sustainable future can involve every human’s right to get education or to have access to clean water. As there is not one clear way to solve sustainability issues, there is a need to be able to make value judgments to determine what actions can result in an articulated goal.
In spite of the differences between perspectives and approaches in the field of ESD research, a common point of departure is the view that children are important actors for change in the future (see, for example, EPSD, 2010). Hence, one way to explore ESD is to investigate what
This article explores which actions are made relevant in preschool educational settings. Analyzing how children move forward in an activity makes it possible to grasp why and how certain kinds of actions and competences become relevant and others do not. In these analyses, it is also possible to discuss how the actions in the meaning-making process prepare the children for future actions, that is, what kinds of action competences they develop.
We will use an analytical approach developed and used in a number of previous studies (e.g., Lidar, Lundqvist, & Östman, 2006; Lundqvist, Almqvist, & Östman, 2009; Rudsberg & Öhman, 2010). The approach is built on a pragmatic perspective on meaning-making and a view on language inspired by the late Wittgenstein (1953/1992, 1969/1992). From a pragmatic perspective, meaning-making is a complex and dynamic process in which knowledge undergoes change; knowledge grows and develops rather than just accumulates (Dewey, 1938/1997). In the meaning-making process, for example, when people interact there is a need to make the situation at hand intelligible to be able to move forward. A way to make situations intelligible is by making connections between what a person encounters and his or her earlier experiences. In this way, participation in past activities contributes to the formation of the present situation, at the same time as the present situation prepares for future activities (cf. Almqvist et al., 2008; Lidar, Almqvist, & Östman, 2010). Many of the actions that people perform are habitual; people fall back on them because they have learned the actions in earlier situations and because they do not see a need to doubt them in the present activities (cf. Wittgenstein, 1953/1992, 1969/1992). This means that they do not have to reflect on their actions but can act as they are used to in similar situations (Dewey, 1922/1988). In such cases, learning can be understood as a gradual transformation of habits and ways of acting. However, when the actors do not automatically know how to move ahead in a situation, this creates what can be called a “problematic situation” (Wickman & Östman, 2002; Hedefalk et al., in press). When observing interactions, these problematic situations are a window into exploring how a situation is made meaningful and how the participants are able to move forward and also—and central to this article—which actions are considered appropriate in educational settings.
Teaching Principles
In teaching activities, teachers have to make choices regarding educational goals, content, and methods. These choices reflect, among other things, which actions are relevant in the practice. To be able to describe what kinds of actions are considered relevant in education, we introduce the concept
Teaching for sustainable development can be categorized into three teaching traditions based on different views on the goals and content of ESD: the
These three teaching traditions were described in analyses in environmental education context (Sandell et al., 2005; Skolverket, 2001). In this study, we take our point of departure from this categorization to discuss feasible consequences when teaching in preschool. We develop an approach that explores how different teaching principles would look in the different traditions, specifically looking at what different kinds of actions the teacher privileges.
The purpose is to look for all the three different kinds of principles in a preschool context and discuss what these various ways of teaching mean in relation to children’s possibilities to develop action competence for a sustainable development.
The Fact-Based Teaching Principle
Characteristic of the fact-based teaching principle is that the learners are expected to learn facts of some kind (Flogaitis, Daskolia, & Agelidou, 2005; Östman, 1995; Sandell et al., 2005; Vare & Scott, 2007). The idea is that to be able to act for change, the children need to learn facts that they can use as a base for their decision making; when they have learned enough, they are also competent to act for change (cf. Östman & Almqvist, 2011). Fact-based teaching means that children interact in a way which results in the acquisition of suitable facts about the issue in focus. Discussing values—for example, different views on the relationship between man and nature—is not relevant in teaching based on this principle because the focus of the educational content is on finding the correct description of the world (Sandell et al., 2005).
The Normative Teaching Principle
In the normative teaching tradition, moral issues are highlighted and teachers focus on questions about how to act (Östman & Almqvist, 2011; Sund & Wickman, 2011). However, the relevant values are decided beforehand and seen as a central part of the educational content that should be learned by the children.
The normative principle emphasizes learning predefined values (Sandell et al., 2005; Vare & Scott, 2007). A predefined value means that the content is built on a specific view (held by, for example, scientists, stakeholders, organizations, or political parties) that defines which actions should be considered relevant.
In teaching built on this principle, discussing values is regarded as irrelevant because the understanding is that the predefined values form the correct answers. Students do not need to value the teaching content, just learn it. Teachers guided by this principle would acknowledge that there are different ways to act and different answers to the same questions, but the principle dictates that only one—or very few—of the answers is valid.
The Pluralistic Teaching Principle
As with the normative teaching principle, the content of the pluralistic teaching principle includes moral questions, but its main characteristic is that the children are expected to learn how to critically make value judgments. 4 Consequently, in teaching built on this principle encourages the children search for information as stakeholders using different sources, such as the media and literature, to scrutinize and discuss different views on the subject in focus. The learners are expected to critically explore different views and come to conclusions by themselves or together with others. It is also possible for different children to find different solutions; consensus is not always necessary.
Purpose
The aim of this article is twofold. First, the aim is to describe and analyze which actions are made relevant in different preschool settings. The described activities show which action competences the children will need to participate in particular practices. Second, the actions performed are compared with those prioritized within the three different teaching principles described above. This comparison makes it possible to discuss which action competences children develop in Swedish early childhood education in relation to those called for in ESD research.
In other words, the analyses will highlight the following research questions:
Method
Empirical Material
The empirical material consists of transcripts from video recordings collected at a preschool in Sweden. The preschool is situated on the outskirts of a city and surrounded by forest, farm land, and meadows. Some of the children walk to the preschool and some come by a vehicle, depending on how close they live to the preschool. The ages of the children differ between the groups: Dundret has children aged 1 to 2 years, the children in Kebnekaise are 3 to 4 years, and the children in Skanderna are 5 to 6 years. There are two staff members working with every group, for a total of six employees.
The study complies with Swedish research ethics. The preschool teachers, parents, and children were asked for informed consent before the project started, and all the participants have been given fabricated names.
The video recordings, a total of 24 hr of film, were open-ended and recorded during the mornings (between 9:00 a.m. and noon) on 17 separate occasions in May and June 2010. Since we are interested in analyzing children’s discussions with teachers and with each other, we have not in the analyses included parts of the material were they are playing quietly, walking in a line quietly, singing or listening to a teacher reading from a book. In total, approximately 13½ hr of the recordings were tran-scribed.
The analysis of the empirical material was conducted in two steps:
Step 1: Practical epistemology analysis
In the first step, we used practical epistemology analysis, where we analyzed the problematic situations to find out how the children make the situation meaningful. Wickman and Östman (2002) introduced this approach analyzing science education at university level.
However, when people are not sure about which action to pursue, when a situation is not immediately intelligible, we say that a gap appears (Wickman & Östman, 2002). The gap is noticeable because the participants need to solve the problem before they can carry on the meaning-making. According to Wickman and Östman (2002), most of the gaps are quickly filled in an activity, but some linger, which means that the participants do not immediately bridge them. To bridge the gap, the children need to make the situation intelligible. The analyses of meaning-making are thus descriptions of how the gaps children encounter are bridged.
The first step of the analysis was to show what meaning-making is done. In the analysis, the meaning-making becomes evident when gaps appear; then, we present what actions are performed to bridge the gaps.
In the analyses of the transcripts, we searched for “problematic situations,” that is situations where the participants hesitate or do not automatically know how to proceed. These situations are keys to understanding how a situation is made meaningful and what actions the participants performed to be
Step 2: Comparison and potential consequences
In the second step of the analysis, a comparative strategy was used. This is done by associating the different actions that are described in the first step with the three different teaching principles. The identified gaps not only tell us what the children have learned from prior experience but also how they solve problems.
Furthermore, we discuss the actions in relation to the implications for children’s possibilities to develop the action competences that are sought after in ESD research. Different actions are identified as relevant in different teaching principles and give us a clue as to what kind of actions can be performed within the different teaching contexts. This allows us to identify actions in everyday preschool life and to discuss the potential consequences of the teaching principles for the development of action competence as discussed within ESD.
Results
We have found three different categories of actions used to solve problematic situations participants encounter in the preschool setting, suggesting which actions were privileged in the situations. The categorization of these actions is made in terms of “needs” that are required to bridge different kinds of gaps: (a) the need to know what to focus on, (b) the need for additional information, and (c) the need to make value judgments.
In the following, we use a few empirical examples to illustrate each category. The illustrations in the first step show how the actors proceed to move forward in the situation. In the next step, the actions are compared with actions that are privileged and agree with the different teaching principles.
The Need to Know What to Focus On
Step 1: Practical epistemology analysis
Three children sit on a rug with a volcano landscape motif on it, playing with plastic dinosaurs and looking in a book about dinosaurs. In our analysis of their meaning-making process, we can see that it becomes important for them to investigate whether the dinosaurs are meat-eaters or plant-eaters.
Kasper wants to attack Karin’s dinosaur but finds this difficult, because grass-eaters do not attack each other. The discussion about meat-eaters versus plant-eaters and their attacks on each other goes on for quite a while. 5 In one example from their conversation, Kasper’s dinosaur starts to attack Karin’s dinosaur by biting it. Kalle, who is watching them, interrupts the play and tells them that Kasper’s dinosaur is a plant-eater and does not bite other dinosaurs. Kasper then picks up another dinosaur and starts attacking Karin’s dinosaur again. As Kalle does not protest, we can assume that the new dinosaur is considered to be a meat-eater.
In a sense, the children now have all the information they need to move forward in their play. However, the question about how to decide what dinosaur belongs to which group lingers in their discussion. The children continue to investigate and discuss differences between plant-eaters and meat-eaters. A teacher, Kristina, enters the activity, sits down on the rug, and helps the children to focus on something they have not noticed before. 6 She instructs the children to examine the mouth of one of the dinosaurs. According to the teacher, the mouth and teeth are what the children should pay attention to when determining whether the dinosaur is a plant-eater or a meat-eater. Kasper answers by saying that the dinosaur is a plant-eater, but without examining the mouth. The teacher again directs the children toward the mouth by saying, “Look in the mouth then.” Kasper reacts to the teacher’s method of investigation by saying, “No, it is a plant-eater.” Karin follows the teacher’s direction by examining the mouth and says that the mouth is pink. The teacher then instructs the children to examine their own mouths by feeling their teeth. Here, we can see that Kasper follows the teacher’s instructions, even though he knows another way to decide what type of dinosaur he has in front of him.
Step 2: Comparison and potential consequences
In the empirical example, the children were told what to do to find an answer to their query; they never had to critically evaluate the actions. Consequently, the actions that are privileged in this situation are in line with the
As described above, for actions to become relevant in the normative or pluralistic teaching principles, the discussion has to deal with moral and not just with epistemological problems. In these situations, facts alone do not facilitate moving forward in the situation. For example, in the situation in which the dinosaurs were categorized according to what they ate, the moral problem of whether it is morally defensible for living creatures to attack each other
In the
In the
The Need for Additional Information
Step 1: Practical epistemology analysis
In this empirical example, the dinosaur activity described above continues. 7 Karin sits on the rug with Kasper and Karolina, and Kalle observes them. They play with the dinosaurs by pushing them against each other. Suddenly, Kalle shouts out and directs the other children’s attention toward a book. He points at a picture and says, “Look, this one, look here how strange when there are horns.” Kasper notes that the dinosaur in his hand has horns, and he places the dinosaur on top of the picture. “But this is a meat-eater,” Kalle says and points at the book. “That one is not a meat-eater.” He points at Kalle’s plastic dinosaur.
A gap has appeared: Kalle has assumed that meat-eaters do not have any horns, but the meat-eater in the book has horns, which contradicts his earlier experiences. This makes him doubt the new information. Kalle compares the dinosaurs but cannot make sense of the pictures. Karolina and Kasper look in the book and continue the activity by discussing that some dinosaurs have short horns and others have long horns. However, they are unable to fill the gap, and they start a new investigation.
Step 2: Comparison and potential consequences
In the empirical example outlined above, the actions that are privileged agree with the
Feasibly, a teacher could intervene in a situation as in the situation above and turn the discussion about the dinosaur’s horn into a discussion about a moral problem and, thus, make it relevant within the normative and pluralistic teacher traditions. This could, for example, involve a discussion about whether a plant-eater or a meat-eater should use the horns against each other or not. In the
In the
The Need to Make Value Judgments
Step 1: Practical epistemology analysis
In the two empirical examples provided below, the need to make value judgments is illustrated and solved in different ways. In the empirical examples, we can observe a need to know which action is valued as the right one.
In the first situation, the children hesitate about how to act when they encounter a hedgehog in the preschool yard. The children are playing in the courtyard on a warm and sunny morning. 8 Selma, Sofia, and Sara climb on two ropes tied between two trees. Selma suddenly stops when she catches sight of a hedgehog.
The girls start to examine the hedgehog and Selma notes that the hedgehog is thorny. Sara suggests that they can poke the hedgehog with a stick. All three girls each fetch a stick. Selma then pokes the hedgehog with her stick. Sara says, “We are just fiddling around.” The girls hesitate—a gap appears, in that they do not know if this action is okay to perform or not. Sara changes her action by shouting, “don’t,” to Selma and runs toward a teacher. “Miss, Miss. There is a hedgehog. Come and look. We have found a hedgehog.” Selma drops the stick and starts shouting, “We have found a hedgehog. We have found a hedgehog.”
The girls alert several children and a teacher, and one of the girls, Selma, bends over the hedgehog and pokes it with the stick. Kia, the teacher, however, informs the children that it is wrong to poke the hedgehog with sticks: “No Sofia, do not poke it. Let it be, you are not allowed to touch it,” the teacher responds. A possible gap arises because Selma says that she is not poking, just touching. The teacher then clarifies that no touching is allowed: “What did I just say? You are not allowed to touch it.” Sofia runs to fetch more children and at the same time shouts that they should not touch the hedgehog. Selma shows in action that she has understood the teacher by stopping the poking, and shouting to the other children that they are not allowed touching the hedgehog.
Step 2: Comparison and potential consequences
The need to make value judgments becomes relevant when the hedgehog enters the preschool yard. The children find out that it is wrong to examine the animal closely, at least by poking it with sticks. Watching from a distance is considered to be the right way to act. In this activity, the relevant way to act is indicated by the teacher’s prior value judgment of which action is considered morally acceptable. There is no possibility for the children to discuss different ways to act in this activity. The teacher’s suggested actions are privileged, following the
In this situation, the
For the actions to be consistent with the
A Second Example of Making Value Judgments
Step 1: Practical epistemology analyses
A few children gather together and sit in a ring on the floor. 9 They have just sung a song about a mosquito, and a discussion about how to protect themselves against mosquitoes has begun. The teacher, Saga, leads the gathering and decides whose turn it is to speak. The children have made different suggestions, and it is now Svante’s turn to contribute to the discussion: “But if a mosquito, if you feel that a mosquito lands on you, you just go like this.” He hits his arm with the palm of his hand.
A gap occurs as the discussion continues. Svante has presented the idea that you can smash the mosquito with your hand, but teacher Kristina suggests another way of getting rid of the mosquito—by sweeping it away. This statement from the teacher indicates that it is possible to have different views; Kristina’s suggestion means that the mosquito stays alive, while Svante would end up with a dead mosquito.
Kristina’s suggestion can be understood as a grounded in a specific moral value: It is wrong to kill insects. Svante sticks to his idea and repeats his suggestion of smashing the mosquito: “Yes, or smash it.” The teacher Saga says that she “actually” thinks that it is okay to hit mosquitoes because they are not pleasant to humans. She develops this reasoning by saying that it is okay to kill unpleasant animals, but those that are not unpleasant should be allowed to live by being swept away. Our interpretation is that when she says “actually,” she indicates that there might be other beliefs about this; this is just what she thinks.
Kalle supports teacher Saga’s idea as he shows how this can be done by smashing an imaginary insect with his hands. The gap lingers because Saga says, “No, now you have to listen.” According to her, Kalle’s suggestion of hitting insects is not completely acceptable. Teacher Saga explains what kinds of insect she thinks can be killed or not. Her reasoning involves killing insects that inflict pain to humans; the other ones can be swept away without them losing their lives.
Step 2: Comparison and potential consequences
In this example, the teachers take different stands on how to act, which in turn makes it possible for the children to also consider different ways of acting. These kinds of actions are privileged in the
If both teachers had agreed on the same way of acting, it might not have been necessary for the children to consider different ways of acting. When the teachers decide for the children which actions are considered to be right, the actions are privileged and consistent with the
Conclusion
The overall aim of this article has been to describe and analyze which actions are privileged in different preschool settings and to compare these actions with those that are privileged in three different teaching principles: the
We found three different categories of actions the children perform to solve problematic situations they encounter. The categorization of these actions is made in terms of “needs” that are required to bridge different kinds of gaps: the need to know what to focus on, the need for additional information, and the need to make value judgments. Even if these actions are not performed within a sustainability context, the children develop general competences that are called for in ESD research.
The privileged actions that are consistent with the
A teacher’s didactic choices may have a great impact on the direction of an action (cf. Hedefalk, in press). If teachers want children to develop competences that involve dealing with moral problems and dilemmas, the use of facts is not sufficient for moving forward in the situation. Actions that are privileged within the
ESD researchers describe action competence as the ability to discuss and critically evaluate alternatives (Læssøe, 2010; Mogensen & Schnack, 2010; Öhman, 2011; Rudsberg & Öhman, 2010). As there is not one clear way to solve sustainable issues, actors must be able to critically value what actions can result in the articulated goal. Sustainable issues are not articulated in the preschool activities we have analyzed, but students can learn how to critically discuss and make value judgments about actions in more general terms in some activities.
When the children were playing with the dinosaurs, we noticed that the need to find facts was relevant and moral questions were not. What seems to be important to focus on in preschool activities, for children to develop action competences asked for within ESD research, is to learn how to critically value different actions. In that sense, the fact-based principle cannot be used solely to develop an action competence to make value judgments about moral dilemmas. We do not suggest that teachers turn every activity into a moral dilemma but we do want to highlight the importance of noticing the activities where children can critically make a value judgment.
The importance of being able to make a value judgment was evident in the study when facts were not sufficient to solve a problem. Without values, it is not possible to evaluate what is at hand. Therefore, ESD has to contain activities where children evaluate and critically discuss matters. Learning facts is not always enough.
Hence, the study has shown that preschool teachers should pay attention to situations in which value judgments become important. When there is a need to make a value judgment about a moral matter, there is also a possibility to create different solutions and critically evaluate what actions are appropriate. By acting in these situations, children hopefully can build the foundation of action competences discussed in ESD research.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.