De tysta barnen

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study is to make visible whether, and in these cases how, the children who do not take up so much space gain speaking space and influence in preschool and kindergarten. The goal is to answer the questions about what thoughts preschool teachers have about influence, the children I call the quiet children and what strategies preschool teachers have for including these children. The qualitative survey was conducted with the help of semi-structured interviews where six preschool teachers were interviewed to make visible how they work. The interviews were transcribed, and the results were categorized according to the research questions. The results have been analyzed and interpreted with the help of Vygotsky's sociocultural theory and with a phenomenographic approach, and in the discussion, I have commented on previous research. It appears that the preschool teachers have a greater awareness of including the quiet children than I before the survey had feared in my hypotheses. Preschool teachers do see the problems that exist, and with different strategies they do what they can to see, hear and support these children. Something that also emerges is the strengths that preschool teachers see in the quiet children. Further research could be done by visiting the teaching activities to make observations of what it looks like in reality.