Stödmaterial avsett för undervisning om hållbar utveckling i förskolan : En kvalitativ innehållsanalys av stödmaterial som syftar till att främja barns handlingskompetens

Sammanfattning: Teaching can be perceived as a complex concept, as can sustainable development and what these concepts mean for preschool activities. Therefore, support materials for teaching sustainable development are likely to be used by preschool staff. There is evidence that teachers need to know how to teach in order to promote children’s action competence in sustainable development. Against this background, this study aims to analyse such support materials through a qualitative content analysis. The study’s theory is based on the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) framework and qualifications that characterise teaching that promotes children’s action competence in sustainable development. Collected data consists of parts from three Swedish-language support materials aimed at preschool. The study shows that the support materials generally fulfil the study’s analysis criteria for promoting children’s action competence. These support materials can contribute to the development of knowledge about sustainable development, promote the belief in one’s own competence to change, strengthen courage and commitment and the will to change, and promote responsibility. Furthermore, the support materials are open to different end products and, through their use, enable children to reflect on different ways of acting and reasoning. Differences between the three support materials are that two of them direct opinions towards normalised actions, which according to the study’s theory should not be included in teaching to promote children’s action competence. The support materials vary in the description of the conditions required to use the content in practice, with one of them requiring more subject knowledge from the pedagogue than the others. And one of them contains leading questions rather than open questions. The results show that the three support materials could be used in preschool to promote children’s action competence in sustainable development. The range of available support materials for teaching sustainable development that clearly aim to promote action competence is limited and therefore a challenge may be to find a suitable support material that meets such a purpose.