Att stöpas i samma form : En essä om normer, makt och barnsyn i förskolan

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study is to investigate how preschool as a practice and institution, can allow or limita child in his/her social action, thus constructing what is considered normal and deviant in the context of preschool. In my research, I discuss questions concerning norms, power and views on children, as well as their social, cultural and historical influence. I argue that these three aspects (norms,power and the way we see children) are strongly associated with each other, and that their overlapping represents a complex cultural and critical process. I have deliberately chosen to highlight the contrasts in the connotation of these concepts to broaden the understanding and perspectives on what they might imply. By this I mean, for example, that I examined power related governance techniques as authoritarian or as a mutual interaction, an instrumental or a liberalist view on the value of children, and how norms can be understood as constant or contextual, social or individual. In the text, I also highlight how the preschool curriculum can be understood and interpreted from a normative perspective. This paper is based ona specific event from my own experience, where the encounter with the individual child's perspective becomes contradictory to what can be perceived as optimal for the preschool's structure and the need for order. The method of my study is essay writing, which means that I reflecton my own experience, with the help of relevant theoretical works and in meeting with other students and my supervisor. This has allowed me to distance myself from the event and thus have the opportunity to consider it from more than one perspective. The study shows that theoretical and practical knowledge, ability to perspectival view and an increased awareness among the educators are required in order to problematize and critically examine their daily operation, in an effort that the preschool's activities do not continue unreflected and thus contribute to a normalizing society.