Vi var här först, gå! : En vetenskaplig essä om hur barn på fritidshemmet kan ingå i destruktiva grupperingar, och hur vi pedagoger kan stötta dem i att ingå i större sammanhang med andra klasskamrater.

Sammanfattning: This study takes its starting point in a person experience where I had a difficult time dealing with a group of students who had come together in a formation when they spent time away from their classmates during the first weeks of having after-school activities. The other children later felt excluded by the group that had then taken form. Using different methods, I attempted to get the group in question to participate in activities with the other children, but my efforts were in vain. With the help of Etienne Wenger’s theory of the alliance building and communities of practice, I want to investigate in finding answer to why the children grouped themselves in this way and the investigation in its turn led me to reflecting upon if the children felt secure at the after-school center. The aim of this investigation is to contribute to increasing the sense of fellowship among the children at the after-school center and to help me, as well as other working educators, to find tools for how one can take action in similar situations. The method I have chosen to use for the study is the academic essay, and the question I seek to answer is: How can I, as an after-school educator, work so that everyone in a class can be included in the same community? I conclude that I have not found a solution but rather an opening for how I can support the group as they develop confidence in us adults and become secure participants in the operations together with the other children. Such an opening can occur, for example when the children in the group are fighting with each other, or when there are other ways to reach these closed groups of children. When these openings occur, it is especially important for the pedagogue to not try to seize the opportunity and split the peer group. Instead, it is important that the adults are trying to build the children's confidence in them by treating them with respect and take the time to try to see each child.