This study aims to contribute knowledge about obstacles and opportunities for pedagogical continuity in science across early childhood education. We use activity theory to analyse individual interviews and group meetings with teachers from preschool (age 1-5), preschool class (age 6) and grade 1-3 (age 7-9) in three Swedish school units. The teachers' descriptions of their science teaching indicate both obstacles and opportunities for pedagogical continuity. For example, all teachers want to establish an interest in, and foster a caring attitude to nature, a similarity that facilitates continuity. However, some crucial differences indicate obstacles. There is a shift concerning ownership; from following children's initiatives in preschool in bodily and play based experiences towards an emphasis on pre-planned content, verbal knowledge and written documentation in grade 1-3. Our findings also suggest that teachers lack knowledge about each other's teaching and curricula. Hence, the conditions for pedagogical continuity largely rest upon what children share in the science class. We argue that there is need for an in-depth exchange of experiences, regarding content, teaching methods and frame factors, between teachers from different school forms.

In our project we seek to contribute with new knowledge about pedagogical (dis-)continuities in early childhood science. In this presentation we explore how the same science content is carried out in different ECE school forms, and how different local early childhood educational cultures may give opportunities or become obstacles for science teaching continuities. Our data was collected in three Swedish school units, each comprising at least one preschool, one preschool class and one class from the first three grades of primary school. Classroom observations of science activities were performed at 44 occasions. Activity Theory was used to describe how the teachers in different school forms deal with the same content and how their teaching is affected by local educational cultures.

Across the school forms there was a gradual shift from science learning through nature encounters and ‘doing’ towards an emphasis on concepts, facts, processes and inquiry. Tools for communicating about the subject also gradually shifted, from verbal communication and creative activities towards subject-focused drawing, writing, and reading. Subject continuity was above all ensured by the teacher’s sensitivity to the children’s former experiences, taking it into account when planning the science activities. The overall picture is one of gradual changes of science teaching across early year’s school forms. The bridge for continuity in a specific subject area is however fragile, since it is the children, rather than the teachers or the organization, who become the primary carriers of continuity. This calls for considering how to construct meeting opportunities for teachers, in order to better communicate and adapt their science teaching to what children have or will experience.

INTRODUCTION

Internationally, the growing attention towards the benefits of an early start for children has resulted in an increased public spending on early childhood education (ECE) (OECD 2017). The growing attention is also reflected in a rapid expansion of the research field of early year’s science (defined as science activities for children between 0 and 8 years of age). To our knowledge there are however no studies of pedagogical continuities in early childhood science. In our project we seek to contribute with new knowledge within this particular field.

Pedagogical (dis) -continuities across educational cultures

A growing number of ECE research suggests that the benefits of increasing public spending on ECE may disappear during the first years of primary school due to pedagogical discontinuities (OECD 2017). One potential reason for pedagogical discontinuity are the substantial historically and culturally formed differences between prior-to-school and compulsory school settings, differences that shape discrete educational cultures. For example, the school forms are governed by separate curricula that harbor divergent views of the child, learning, teaching and knowledge (Huser, Dockett & Perry, 2016). Many researchers have described this as a gap that somehow needs to be bridged. Others have emphasized the importance of distinguishable borders between different school forms (Ackesjö 2014).

In Sweden, where this project is conducted, 83 percent of all children in ages between 1-5 years are enrolled in preschool. The year children turn six they will transfer to the compulsory preschool class and the succeeding year they will start year 1 at primary school. The preschool class was specifically introduced into the educational system to enable a smooth transition between prior-to-school education and school by intertwining their divergent pedagogies. However, in accordance with the international studies compiled by the OECD, pedagogical discontinuities are still reported, describing missed opportunities to use children's subject learning experiences from preschool and preschool class in the first year of primary school (Skoog 2012, Ackesjö 2014).

Objectives and research questions

The results presented here are part of a larger project where the main objective is to explore if, and how, educational cultures may affect continuity in science teaching across early childhood school forms. In educational settings the concept continuity may be described as in Dewey's "principles of continuity" thus, that experiences in the present always are colored by previous experiences, and that the challenge for teachers is to provide learners with quality experiences that both rely on their previous experiences and will result in growth and creativity in subsequent experiences (Dewey 1938/1997). Continuity across school forms are often put forward as desirable, but the concept is seldom further elaborated as to what it is, how it can be accomplished, and for whom it is desirable (Ackesjö 2016). Ackesjö (2016) mentions several different aspects of continuity advocated in research, such as communicative (referring to communication between teachers in different school forms), social, curricular, organizational, cultural, and teaching continuity.

In this presentation, we focus on a subsample of our empirical data: science activities that deal with the same content occurring in at least two different school forms. Our aim is to explore how the same science content is carried out in three different ECE school forms. We seek to answer the following questions: 1) What characterizes science teaching of a given content, in the different school forms? 2) What opportunities for, and obstacles to, teaching continuity, in relation to a given science content, can be identified across school forms?

METHOD

Our data was collected in three Swedish school units, each comprising at least one preschool, one preschool class and one class from the first three grades of primary school. Together the three units comprise 4 preschools, 4 preschool classes and 4 grade 1-3 classes. Classroom observations of science activities were performed at 44 occasions (preschools (18), preschool classes (8), primary school (18)).

To characterize and compare the science teaching across the school forms, we draw on Activity Theory (Engeström 1987) and thus constructed triangle models for all the activities. These models include a description of seven elements; the subject (the teacher), object (the purpose), tools, rules, community/educational culture, division of labour and outcome of the activities. The descriptions of the elements of activities with recurring content across school forms were compared to a) identify how teachers in different school forms deal with the same content and b) how culturally formed differences (rules, community/educational culture, division of labour and outcome) may affect their teaching.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

We identified seven recurring contents across the school forms. These were: Water, Plant growth, Fungi, Friction, Insulation, Seasons and Animal tracks. Among these, ‘water’ was the only content that occurred across all three school forms.

Four aspects of shifts in how science teaching is carried out across the school forms were identified. Firstly, in all school forms the children’s former experiences, interests and curiosity were integral aspects of the science teaching. We however identified a shift from using children’s interests as a starting point for science education in preschool towards integrating children's views into teaching of mandatory science curriculum in primary school (subject and educational culture). Second, the teaching approaches shift from focus on verbal communication and creative activities towards subject-focused drawing, writing, and reading (tools). Third, there is a shift from nature encounters and ‘doing’ towards an emphasis on concepts, facts, processes and inquiry (objects). These three shifts are all gradual across the school forms. There is also an example of a more abrupt shift in teaching across school forms; from voluntariness (in preschool) towards mandatory participation (in school) (rules). In the presentation we will describe these trends in more details exemplifying it by how teachers handle the content ‘water’ and ‘fungi’ across school forms.

CONCLUSION

We see a potential for science teaching continuity across early childhood school forms. The subject specific continuity however, is grounded in a sensitivity among the teachers for what the children have experienced in previous school forms. This teaching continuity thus relies altogether on the information that the children choose to share. Hence, this bridge for science teaching between school forms is fragile, since it is the children, rather than the teachers or the organization, who become the primary carriers of continuity. This calls for considering how to strengthen the communicative continuity, that is to construct meeting opportunities for teachers across ECE school forms, in order to better adapt their teaching to what children have or will experience.

REFERENCES

Ackesjö, H. (2014) Barns övergångar till och från förskoleklass: Gränser, identiteter och (dis) kontinuiteter. Doctoral Thesis Växjö, Linnaeus University Press 148.

Ackesjö, H. (2016). Övergångar mellan skolformer – kontinuitet och progression från förskola till skola. Stockholm: Liber AB

Dewey, J. (1938/1997). Experience and Education. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by expanding: an activity-theoretical approach to developmental research. Helsinki: Orienta-konsultit.

Huser, C. Dockett, S. & Perry, B. (2016) Transition to school: revisiting the bridge metaphor. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 24 (3) 439-449

OECD (2017) Starting Strong 2017: Key OECD Indicators on Early Childhood Education and Care, Starting Strong, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264276116-en

Skoog, M. (2012) Skriftspråkande i förskoleklass och årskurs 1. Örebro Studies in Education 33.

Topic/idea and arguments for the topic’s importance

In our project, we seek to understand transition challenges for early years science teaching. We have combined third generation models of Activity Theory (Engeström, 2001) and formative interventions (Penuel 2014) to describe obstacles and opportunities that surface when teachers from different school forms strive to construct a shared object: pedagogical continuity in science education.

In our analytical work, we have first constructed triangle models to describe activities and activity systems for preschools, preschool classes and primary school classes. The activity systems have then been compared across school forms. When comparing activity systems across school forms, we realised that some of the critical factors for continuity are not included in conventional triangle models. Consequently, we would like to share and discuss three methodological issues:

1. There is no room for frame factors such as policy agendas, class sizes, time schedules, and access to premises/personnel in conventional triangle models. Yet, in our analyses we discovered that teachers drew on frame factors in their boundary work (cf. Gieryn 1983) towards other school forms.
2. In many AT studies, the community node consists of a description of various stakeholders within the activity system. In our previous work, we have instead used the community node to describe the educational culture of the community (e.g., Sundberg et al. 2018). There, the educational culture includes overarching views of how children learn, what counts as good or desirable learning and the role of the teacher for children’s learning (cf. Biesta 2011). Since our studies show that the educational culture is crucial to how and whether science is afforded the children (Sundberg et al. 2018), we would like to discuss the place for educational cultures within AT models.
3. When comparing the activity systems, the role of each teacher’s professional experience and science confidence has emerged as a critical factor for pedagogical continuity in science education. For example, teachers with strong science competence as well as confidence or teachers with work experience from both preschool and primary school seem less occupied with boundary work towards other school forms. In our current work, we have tentatively described teacher experience and competence within the subject node. This, in turn, has lead to our grappling with the relation between the subject node and the community node, with regards to the educational culture.

All or some of these issues may be discussed depending on the interest of the participants in the reflection space.

Information about empirical data in our current project

Our data was collected in three Swedish school units, each comprising at least one preschool, one preschool class and one class from the first three grades of primary school. Together the three units comprise 4 preschools, 4 preschool classes and 4 grade 1-3 classes. We conducted focus group discussions (10) with teachers across the school forms within each unit, classroom observations of implementations (49) and individual interviews with 21 teachers, before and after the project (35 in total).

Sessionen inleds med en presentation av de första resultaten från ett nystartat projekt som avser att synliggöra hinder och möjligheter för en kontinuitet i undervisning av naturvetenskap för yngre barn i de olika skolformerna förskola, förskoleklass samt åk 1-3.

Projektets har två utgångspunkter: 1) de forskningsrön som indikerar att barns ämnesmässiga erfarenheter inte tas tillvara i samband med övergångar mellan skolformerna och 2) den speciella problematik som uppstår i samband med övergångar just mellan förskola, förskoleklass och skola där barnen övergår från en undervisningskultur till en annan. Kulturerna skiljer sig när det gäller synen på barnet, lärande och kunskap vilket i sin tur påverkar hur man formar aktiviteter med ett lärandeinnehåll. De olika skolformerna styrs också av två olika läroplaner: Lpfö 98 och Lgr 11 med olika krav på t.ex. barns deltagande och lärande.

Projektet bygger på praktiknära forskningsmetoder utifrån tredje generationens verksamhetsteori och teorin om expansivt lärande (Engeström & Sannino 2010). Det genomförs via formativa interventioner (Penuel 2014) där forskare samarbetar med lärare från tre olika enheter som vardera omfattar förskola, förskoleklass och lågstadium.  Målet är att bidra med både generell kunskap om verksamhetsutveckling i pedagogiska miljöer, och specifik kunskap om hur barn/elever kan erbjudas ämnesmässig kontinuitet i samband med övergångar.

Resultatpresentationen fokuseras till två av projektets fem huvudfrågor: 1) Vilka föreställningar har lärare i förskola, förskoleklass samt åk 1-3 om sitt uppdrag att undervisa i naturvetenskap och vad får det för betydelse för hur naturvetenskapliga aktiviteter formas i respektive utbildningskultur? 2) Vilka hinder och möjligheter finns för kontinuitet mellan skolformerna generellt när det gäller pedagogisk verksamhet och specifikt i samband med undervisning i naturvetenskap?

Utifrån de resultat som presenteras inbjuds deltagarna till en diskussion om hur ämnesmässig kontinuitet kan främjas i samband med övergångar mellan skolformer.