”Den vi träffade idag, det var den riktiga Mulle” : En receptionsstudie om barns möten med Skogsmulle

Sammanfattning: Children meet adults dressed out in costumes in various situations. One of these characters is Skogsmulle in Friluftsfrämjandets outdoor education. Since the mid-1950´s Skogsmulle has been part of Swedish childhoods, and the concept has also spread to other countries around the world (C. Lindgren, 2021). The last decades forrest kindergartens and other kinds of preschools with focus on outdoor education flourishes around the world (Alme & Reime, 2021; Sobel, 2014), and some of them provides Skogsmulle activities. The purpose with the Skogsmulle outdoor activities is to learn about, and how to take care of nature in a playful way, and create opportunities for the children to bond with nature and strengthen their biophilia (Yılmaz m.fl., 2020; Änggård, 2009a). The aim of this study is to create knowledge about how children can experience situations when adults dress out as fictional characters, and what characterize their encounters with Skogsmulle in the forrest. Reception theory (Iser, 1980b; Rosenblatt, 2002) is used together with the concept of realunreality (A.-L. Lindgren m.fl., 2015) to explore what preschool children express and analyse the aesthetic response of the children. The method is qualitative case studies inspired by ethnographic design with observation and interviews. The result shows that children´s interpretation of fiction and reality is complex, and their encounters with Skogsmulle can be seen as an example of realunreality where the boundaries of real and unreal mingle (see A.-L. Lindgren m.fl., 2015). The children also becomes co-creators of the Skogsmulle story through their interactions, and creators of children´s culture (see Sparrman, 2011) as a response to the culture that the adults offers the children.