"Du vet vad som gäller!" : En vetenskaplig essä om hur förskollärare förhåller sig till populärkultur i barns lek och samtal

Sammanfattning: This scientific essay examines how preschool teachers relate to the subject of popular culture in preschool. The essay is based on two self-experienced stories from my workplace and from the preschool practice. Both situations depict how the educator dismisses a child's interest in Ninja Turtles while she pays attention to Pippi Longstocking that another child is interested in. One story deal with an unacceptable topic of conversation while the other deals with a "game of violence" inspired by Ninja Turtles. In my reflection, I reflect on and demonstrate how situations like these are treated by many preschool teachers with the help of literature. In my literature review, I also demonstrate why popular culture creates divided opinions and why popular culture should or should not be used as a resource in the development of children in preschool. I also address a perspective of power and a social constructivist perspective in conjunction with the rejection of popular culture to examine a possible reason why these situations arose. I also conducted interviews with three preschool teachers in my own workplace, which gave me a greater perspective of others' perceptions of the concept and view of popular culture in children. Finally, I have analyzed the literature along with the results from the interviews. In my analysis, I mean that popular culture is a complicated subject for educators and the literature is divided, but there is still much to suggest that popular culture is necessary for children for their development.   I have chosen to use a scientific essay with my own empirical material in the form of interviews as the reflection of the literature and the answers from the interviews are necessary to involve as many different perspectives as possible to investigate whether there is any right or wrong that is relevant for this situation and what it looks like in the preschools 'activities when it comes to exercising power and the educators' own backpacks of experience. This study is important and relevant as popular culture is a concept that becomes larger over time and is highly relevant in children's everyday lives.