ArticlePublisher preview available

‘Drawing the Leaves Anyway’: Teachers Embracing Children’s Different Ways of Knowing in Preschool Science Practice

DOI:10.1007/s11165-016-9557-3
Authors:
Sofie Areljung at Umeå University
Sofie Areljung
Christina Ottander at Umeå University
Christina Ottander
Karin Due at Umeå University
Karin Due
Read publisher preview
Download citation
To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the authors.

Abstract and Figures

This study explores if and how teachers combine practices of science and of preschool (children 1–5 years old) into preschool science practice. Views of knowing may differ between science practices, traditionally associated with masculinity and rationality, and preschool practices, traditionally associated with femininity and caring. Recognising this, we have chosen to focus on how teachers’ talk constructs and relates to possible ways of gaining knowledge and reaching explanations of phenomena in preschool science. The analysis builds on two concept pairs often associated with gender as well as knowing: objective-subjective and logical-intuitive. The analysed material consists of 11 group interviews where preschool teachers talk about activities concerning science content. Our results show that several ways of knowing are possible in work with science content in preschool. These include ways of knowing more associated with subjectivity, such as ‘individual liking’ and ‘whole-body perception’, as well as more associated with objectivity, such as ‘noticing differences and similarities’. Furthermore, the results show that the teachers’ talk moves readily between possibilities associated with femininity (subjective and intuitive) and masculinity (objective and logical). This indicates that the teachers in this study have found ways to handle science in preschool that goes against presumed tensions between science and preschool practices. The results contribute to more nuanced ways of describing and thinking about science in preschool and pave the way for further development of science education in early childhood education.
Figures - available from: Research in Science Education
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
  • A preview of this full-text is provided by Springer Nature.
  • Learn more
Preview content only
Content available from Research in Science Education
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
‘Drawing the Leaves Anyway’: Teachers
Embracing Children’s Different Ways of Knowing
in Preschool Science Practice
Sofie Areljung
1,2,3
&Christina Ottander
1
&Karin Due
1
Published online: 27 September 2016
#Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016
Abstract This study explores if and how teachers combine practices of science and of
preschool (children 1–5 years old) into preschool science practice. Views of knowing may
differ between science practices, traditionally associated with masculinity and rationality, and
preschool practices, traditionally associated with femininity and caring. Recognising this, we
have chosen to focus on how teachers’talk constructs and relates to possible ways of gaining
knowledge and reaching explanations of phenomena in preschool science. The analysis builds
on two concept pairs often associated with gender as well as knowing: objective-subjective
and logical-intuitive. The analysed material consists of 11 group interviews where preschool
teachers talk about activities concerning science content. Our results show that several ways of
knowing are possible in work with science content in preschool. These include ways of
knowing more associated with subjectivity, such as ‘individual liking’and ‘whole-body
perception’, as well as more associated with objectivity, such as ‘noticing differences and
similarities’. Furthermore, the results show that the teachers’talk moves readily between
possibilities associated with femininity (subjective and intuitive) and masculinity (objective
and logical). This indicates that the teachers in this study have found ways to handle science in
preschool that goes against presumed tensions between science and preschool practices. The
results contribute to more nuanced ways of describing and thinking about science in preschool
and pave the way for further development of science education in early childhood education.
Keywords Early childhood education .Science education .Preschool teachers .Gendered
practices
Res Sci Educ (2017) 47:1173–1192
DOI 10.1007/s11165-016-9557-3
*Sofie Areljung
sofie.areljung@umu.se
1
Department of Science and Mathematics Education, Umeå University, 901 87 Umeå, Sweden
2
The Graduate School for Gender Studies, Umeå Center for Gender Studies, Umeå University, Umeå,
Sweden
3
The Postgraduate School for Educational Sciences, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
... These seemingly opposing ideals of the preschool and science -in simplified terms framed in an objectivity/subjectivity dichotomy -suggest that epistemological tensions arise as educators implement science activities in preschool. Such tensions are indicated in recent Swedish studies, showing student teachers' and in-service teachers' resistance to telling children what is 'right or wrong' in science activities, thereby avoiding the position of an authoritarian presenter of science facts (Areljung et al., 2017;Sundberg and Ottander, 2013). Other studies show that even though teachers have intentions to steer practice towards science learning, these intentions are often overshadowed by their will to follow children's initiatives and ideas (Gustavsson et al., 2016;Westman and Bergmark, 2014). ...
... But if children are encouraged and supported to conduct investigations based on their own discoveries and questions, children may, as in Siry's (2013) example, gain more multifaceted experiences of the buoyancy concept. Areljung et al. (2017) give another example of productive boundary work in the preschool science arena by pointing out how educators, in their talk about their own preschool science practice, acknowledge a vast range of legitimate ways to learn about the material world, including, and combining, children's systematic observations, experiments, whole-body experiences, personal taste and imagination. One educator tells a story about when they brought paper and pencils to a forest to draw the trees. ...
... One educator tells a story about when they brought paper and pencils to a forest to draw the trees. The children noticed that there were no leaves on the trees, but then 'some of them decided to draw leaves anyway because it was prettier' (Areljung et al., 2017(Areljung et al., : 1186. From this educator's point of view, there did not seem to be much tension involved in the fact that the children's observations of what the trees looked like were blended with their individual taste of what looked pretty. ...
Capturing the world with verbs: Preschool science education beyond nouns and objects
Article
This article seeks to contribute new perspectives to the ontology and epistemology of preschool science education by exploring the idea of using everyday verbs, rather than nouns, to discern possibilities for science learning in preschool. Herein, the author merges empirical examples from preschools with findings from research on children’s noun and verb learning and posthumanist perspectives on matter and concepts. What comes out of the exploration is a radical way of viewing and knowing the world. The verbs trigger a shift from an object-oriented view of the world to seeing action and non-tangible processes and phenomena in one’s surroundings. Further, the verbs highlight the potential science learning that emerges in action and in child–matter relations, opening up to preschool science pedagogies that go beyond subjective/objective and concrete/abstract binaries.
... As a result, the main aim of including science in early childhood education is not for young children to acquire scientific concepts, but to encourage them to question their own models and construct new ones that are increasingly closer to the models of school science [6]. Therefore, it is important to note that young children's models or explanations should not be evaluated as 'right' or 'wrong' [7]. ...
How Do Five-to Six-Year-Old Children Interpret a Burning Candle?
Article
Full-text available
  • May 2021
Many studies have been conducted in recent years on the explanations given by preschoolage children about different natural phenomena. Nonetheless, very few studies have actually focused on the important domain of matter and its transformations. Specifically, the field of chemical reactions remains unexplored. This qualitative study aims to investigate the explanations of twenty-two 5- to 6-year-old children about combustion, while at the same time evaluating the effect of prior experience with science activities on their interpretations. For this study, the following experiment was proposed: burning a candle inside an inverted vessel. The following data collection tools were used: a Predict- Observe-Explain (POE) strategy and audio and video recordings. The children’s explanations were analysed using classification frameworks, which had been developed in previous studies. The results of this study suggest that young children tend to provide naturalistic explanations about combustion. This finding is an indicator that young children are able to construct mental representations within this conceptual domain. Likewise, the results indicate that children who are used to engaging in inquiry-based activities may be more likely to establish a relationship with previous learning experiences to interpret other natural phenomena.
... I nästa avsnitt redogör jag för studier som specifikt undersöker naturvetenskap i förskolan ur genusperspektiv. Genusperspektiv på naturvetenskap i förskolan I de förhållandevis få studier som undersöker naturvetenskap i förskolan ur ett genusperspektiv uppmärksammas framförallt förskollärarnas uppfattningar, samt egna erfarenheter av naturvetenskap (se exempelvis Andersson, 2011;Andersson & Gullberg, 2014;Areljung, Ottander, & Due, 2017;Gullberg, Andersson, Danielsson, Scantlebury, & Hussénius, 2018). Exempelvis studeras förskollärares sätt att hantera traditionella normer förknippade med naturvetenskap (maskulinitet, objektivitet, fakta) i kombination med normer som ofta förknippas med förskola (omsorg, femininitet, intuition, subjektivitet) . ...
Barn, naturvetenskap och könande processer i förskolan Emergent science and gendering processes in preschool
Thesis
Full-text available
  • Aug 2020
The aim of this thesis is to explore how scientific phenomena, together with other agents (human and nonhuman) in preschool, participate in and co-create gendering processes as well as children’s emergent scientific explorations. These are seen as mutual processes emerging in the daily doings and routines in preschool. As a theoretical and methodological foundation, a new materialist perspective drawing on Karen Barad’s (2007) theory of agential realism and diffractive methodology were used, as well as de Freitas and Palmer’s (2016) notion concerning how scientific concepts can work as creative playmates in children’s explorations. The thesis includes four papers that build on data conducted during a field study in a Swedish preschool, together with 25 five year-old children and three teachers. Participant observations, including video recordings and field notes were made over a period of 5 months. The results show that, if and how children get to engage with emergent science is linked to if and how they manage to occupy space and co-act with different materials. As the children were co-acting with different materials, scientific phenomena could make themselves known and intelligible to the children. This means that becoming scientific is something that is enabled in entanglements. One important result connected to this is that these entanglements can include ways and agents not commonly thought of as “scientific”, such as a drawing table, hearts, and feminine discourses. Another result is that even though girls and boys explore together within the same activity, this does not automatically lead to a situation that is more equal. From these results I discuss how children’s emergent scientific explorations are always part of larger, gendered processes. I also discuss the importance to highlight how science in preschool can be “done” in various ways. Otherwise there is a risk that the false picture could be created that some children, already at preschool age, are more “suitable” for science, while others are created as “less suitable”, just as can occur in school and higher education. Furthermore, during the discussion I show how scientific phenomena can work as tools for teachers to approach gendering processes together with.
... Additionally, providing a positive, safe environment recognizes all developmental domains, including social-emotional, are necessary for science learning (Jaber and Hammer 2016;Klemm and Neuhaus 2017;Lee 2017). Finally, providing this environment recognizes the varied experiences, or funds of knowledge, young children bring to the classroom to be utilized (Dunac and Demir 2017) and highlight young children's different ways of knowing science (Areljung et al. 2016;Siry and Kremer 2011). These different ways of knowing provide a foundation for teachers to scaffold learning in the moment and extend the learning by providing materials or planned activities (Siry and Kremer 2011). ...
Preschool Science Education: A Vision for the Future
Article
Full-text available
Reforms in K-12 science education and their implications for PreK teaching, make this a critical time for developing a unified vision for early childhood science education. The goal of this essay is to provide a vision of what it might look like to leverage the best of both early childhood and K-12 science education reform efforts for meaningful science learning opportunities for young children. The essay suggests to best support young children, PreK science education must implement the holistic approach of early childhood education (i.e., physical, social-emotional, and cognitive development) while at the same time taking up the richer scientific disciplinary practices put forth in recent science reform efforts. Bringing together the strengths of both early childhood and science education will support young children in making sense of natural phenomena in the world around them while valuing them as capable science learners with prior experiences.
... Consequently, I entered the ScienceMaking project with the assumption that science-arts integration harbour a potential to disrupt the human/nature and objective/subjective binaries that often constrain what counts as valid knowledge production in STEM education. I was aiming for a comprehensive story of knowledge production that allows for children's subjective contributions and entangled being in the world (see Areljung, Ottander & Due, 2017). ...
Science-Arts as Verbs: New Figurations in Early Childhood
Chapter
  • Dec 2019
This chapter examines how STEAM education may transform education in the STEM subjects towards education for a sustainable future. Particularly, it examines the potential of combining science and arts in preschool practice (children aged 1–5 years) for the sake of fostering sustainable knowing and being in the world. Here, it pursues the idea that everyday science verbs (e.g., rolling, bouncing and sticking) may be referents for children–matter relations in which science learning and creativity emerge. The chapter includes two stories from a collaboration with preschool teachers who have implemented verb-based science-arts education in practice. In one story, the verbs “sprout and grow” were combined with painting and drama, and in the other story, the verb “shade” (to cast a shadow) was combined with music, dancing and painting. Grounded in Edvin Østergaard’s plea to make more room for aesthetic experience in science education, in Barbara McClintock’s scientific creativity and “feeling for the organism”, and in Karen Barad’s agential realism, the chapter portrays examples of science-arts education that allow children to be intensely involved in the world. It concludes that the arts may help children not only to communicate and explore science phenomena, but also to sympathise with nature’s goings on from within; from their own multifaceted experiences of what it is like to cast a shadow, sprout and grow.
... Studies using gender perspectives have mostly focused on teachers' approaches and conceptions. For example, how teachers handle and combine traditional norms connected to science (masculinity, objectivity, facts) with norms connected to preschool (care, femininity, intuition, subjectivity) (Areljung, Ottander, and Due 2016), pre-service teachers' reflections and different ways of identifying events related to gender and emergent science (Gullberg et al. 2018) and pre-service teachers' own (gendered) experiences from learning science and technology and how this affects their ability to teach science and technology to children (Andersson 2011;Andersson and Gullberg 2014;Hedlin and Gunnarsson 2014). These studies show that norms and discourses connected to science and gender affect teachers and how they teach, but that these aspects can be less determining if teachers combine scientific facts with children's subjective theories and explorations. ...
Gender and Education How does gendering matter in preschool science How does gendering matter in preschool science Emergent science, 'neutral' environments and gendering processes in preschool
Article
Full-text available
  • Jun 2019
This article explores gendered processes in preschool science through Barad's agential realism [2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway. Quantum Physics of the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. London: Duke Universal Press], and as such, the study makes both theoretical and empirical contributions in how it combines perspectives from emergent science [Siraj-Blatchford, J. 2001. Emergent Science and Technology in the Early Years." Paper presented at the XXIII World Congress of OMEP. Santiago, Chile, August 3], new materialism, and gender theory. Empirically, the study makes use of data constructed during a field study in a Swedish preschool with five-year-old children. The focus of the field study was the children's play and explorations together with the preschool environment, during activities not specifically guided by teachers. The analysis highlights how the children's identities and scientific explorations are made possible as well as constrained together with the preschool's material-discursive environment. As such, the study demonstrates how teachers cannot rely on any environment, activity, choice or subject content to be (gender) neutral. ARTICLE HISTORY
Begynnande naturvetenskap och könade kroppar i förskolans utelek
Article
Full-text available
  • Dec 2018
Drawing on new materialist thought (Barad 2003, 2007, 2010, 2011, 2014), this study explores preschool children’s gendered becomings as they play and explore together with two large boulders in a natural setting. The study takes its point of departure in emergent science (Siraj-Blatchford 2001) which refers to science as a social practice that is already explored by children’s daily play. Data for the project was constructed during a field study in a Swedish preschool with 25 five-year old children. The focus of the field study was the children’s play and explorations together with the preschool environment, during activities not specifically guided by teachers. The findings show how also natural materials, as the boulders in this study, can take part in and shape, both the children’s scientific explorations and their gendered becomings. This means that the ways that a child managed to explore and become was dependent on if and how the child managed to co-act and play together with the boulders and friction. However, not only the boulders, but also gender norms functioned as co-creators in this process. This goes against the common thought of children’s play in nature as “free and equal”, a notion that is not often questioned. Studies exploring children’s play and learning outdoors often lack gender perspectives, especially when science is also in focus. One of the article’s conclusions is the need for preschool teachers to engage in how children explore emergent science together with the natural/ material-discursive surroundings. That is, how different natural materials co-act with gender norms in different ways, moment by moment, and thus enable or prevent children from engaging with science and scientific phenomena.
Early Years Physics Teaching of Abstract Phenomena in Preschool—Supported by Children’s Production of Tablet Videos
Article
Full-text available
  • Jun 2022
In 2011, a renewed national curriculum for preschools in Sweden introduced explicit pedagogical tasks concerning chemistry and physics. This article is about the analysis of physics teaching supported by video productions with tablets, part of a three-year professional development programme on collaborative inquiry teaching of chemistry and physics in Swedish preschools. The temporal case studies reported here were focused on children’s and teachers’ communication during extended teaching sequences with three- to six-year-old children in two Swedish preschools. Eleven children and two teachers participated in this study. The children worked in small groups with one teacher. Results indicate that children’s video productions by tablets contributed to children’s learning, with differences indicated for children’s experiences of objects of learning in physics at different levels of abstraction. Consequences of the results for future teaching of early years physics are discussed.
Like school and not like school: ambivalences in Swedish preschool teachers’ enacted policy
Article
Full-text available
  • Jul 2020
There is a tension in Swedish preschool policy when it comes to a subject curriculum and a child-centred curriculum. This article examines how Swedish preschool teachers have dealt with this relationship by focusing on the purpose of the preschool and how preschool teachers become part of the enacted preschool policy. The purpose of the study is to investigate Swedish preschool teachers’ policy talk pertaining to the preschool’s assignment to depart from children’s own interests and school-like subjects. The analysis of interviews with 10 preschool teachers shows how local policy talk is positioned in favour of a child-centred discourse, how tensions can gradually appear in the same sequence and how different actualizations in the national curriculum change the interviewees’ messages. The interviews highlight how enacted preschool policy appears as multi-layered and messy, thereby actualizing a discussion about the basic purpose of the Swedish preschool and its relation to school.
Emergent Science and gendered Bodies in Preschool outdoor Play. Swedish title: Begynnande naturvetenskap och könade kroppar i förskolans utelek
Article
Full-text available
  • Dec 2018
Drawing on new materialist thought (Barad, 2014), this study explores preschool children's gendered becomings as they play and explore together with two large boulders in a natural setting. the study takes its point of departure in emergent science (siraj-Blatchford 2001) which refers to science as a social practice that is already explored by children's daily play. Data for the project was constructed during a field study in a swedish preschool with 25 five-year old children. the focus of the field study was the children's play and explorations together with the preschool environment, during activities not specifically guided by teachers. the findings show how also natural materials, as the boulders in this study, can take part in and shape, both the children's scientific explorations and their gendered becomings. this means that the ways that a child managed to explore and become was dependent on if and how the child managed to co-act and play together with the boulders and friction. however, not only the boulders, but also gender norms functioned as co-creators in this process. this goes against the common thought of children's play in nature as "free and equal", a notion that is not often questioned. studies exploring children's play and learning outdoors often lack gender perspectives , especially when science is also in focus. One of the article's conclusions is the need for preschool teachers to engage in how children explore emergent science together with the natural/ material-discursive surroundings. that is, how different natural materials co-act with gender norms in different ways, moment by moment, and thus enable or prevent children from engaging with science and scientific phenomena.
The Art of Education or the Science of Education
Article
Full-text available
  • Feb 2017
our paper is online available - for free - at: http://educationstudies.org.uk/journal/ef/volume-8-1-2017/the-art-of-education-or-the-science-of-education/besa-journal-ef-8-1-3-feldges/
Beamtimes and Lifetimes: The World of High Energy Physicists
Book
Full-text available
  • Jan 1988
The unique breed of particle physicists constitutes a community of sophisticated mythmakers--explicators of the nature of matter who forever alter our views of space and time. But who are these people? What is their world really like? Sharon Traweek, a bold and original observer of culture, opens the door to this unusual domain and offers us a glimpse into the inner sanctum. http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674063488
Transformativa Kunskapsprocesser för Verksamhetsutveckling. En feministisk aktionsforskningsstudie i förskolan
Book
Full-text available
  • Mar 2009
Gillberg, Claudia (2009). Transformativa kunskapsprocesser för verksamhetsutveckling – en feministisk aktionsforskningsstudie i förskolan. (Transformative knowledge processes for organisational development – a feminist action research study in preschool). Acta Wexionensia No 171/2009. ISSN: 1404-4307, ISBN: 978-91- 7636-652-3. Written in Swedish with a summary in English. This doctoral thesis had two purposes. 1. To study some preschool teachers’ possibilities to develop a gender aware pedagogy by applying theories of organisation, profession and collaboration. 2. To do qualitative research by drawing on principles of research for social justice, as a contribution to the development of methodology in feminist educational action research. The following research questions helped elucidate these purposes: How do preschool teachers create space for reflection and knowledge processes over time? What individual and collective actions do preschool teachers take over time? How can this study contribute to organisational development? Feminist pragmatism served as the philosophical underpinning for feminist action research (FAR) as a methodology and method. The preschool teachers were regarded as agents for change in their own pedagogic and organisational practices. Over a three-year period meetings were conducted on a regular basis. One-on-one interviews, group interviews, numerous emails, telephone calls and some observations completed the data collection. The analytical research narrative emerged by linking the preschool teachers’ actions to their ambiguous professional status. Actions were interpreted by applying the principles inherent in FAR, what, who and critical incidents over time. The absence of professional recognition from the municipal employer and parents for the preschool teachers was evident. Since the preschool teachers needed professional recognition, they experienced the collaborative nature of this study of great value as it conferred legitimacy for their professional development. There emerged meaningful pedagogic change over time, which emphasised the temporal aspect of organisational change from the bottom up. Collective actions began to take root in a shared value system. The design of the project – to collaborate with an outside ally – was decisive in regard to creating space for reflection and collective actions. Collective actions were possible due to the courage of individual participants who dared break silences surrounding organisational injustices. In conclusion, it can be stated that organisational change over time is indeed possible by practising radical openness for agency. Transformative knowledge processes can be achieved provided that genuine offers of participation are issued and well received. By elaborating on terms such as action, participation, emancipation, social justice and knowledge, a methodological contribution could be made to feminist action research. Keywords: feminist action research, feminist pragmatism, professional development, learning (in) organisations, knowledge processes, agency, social justice, preschool teachers, university, scholarship of engagement, gender equity
Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?: Thinking from Women's Lives
Book
  • Dec 2016
03 Sandra Harding here develops further the themes first addressed in her widely influential book, The Science Question in Feminism, and conducts a compelling analysis of feminist theories on the philosophical problem of how we know what we know. Following a strong narrative line, Harding sets out her arguments in highly readable prose. In Part 1, she discusses issues that will interest anyone concerned with the social bases of scientific knowledge. In Part 2, she modifies some of her views and then pursues the many issues raised by the feminist position which holds that women's social experience provides a unique vantage point for discovering masculine bias and and questioning conventional claims about nature and social life. In Part 3, Harding looks at the insights that people of color, male feminists, lesbians, and others can bring to these controversies, and concludes by outlining a feminist approach to science in which these insights are central. "Women and men cannot understand or explain the world we live in or the real choices we have," she writes, "as long as the sciences describe and explain the world primarily from the perspectives of the lives of the dominant groups." Harding's is a richly informed, radical voice that boldly confronts issues of crucial importance to the future of many academic disciplines. Her book will amply reward readers looking to achieve a more fruitful understanding of the relations between feminism, science, and social life.
Starting Strong II: Early Childhood Education and Care
Article
  • Sep 2006
This review of early childhood education and care (ECEC) in twenty OECD countries describes the social, economic, conceptual and research factors that influence early childhood policy. These include increasing women's labour market participation; reconciling work and family responsibilities on a more equitable basis for women; confronting the demographic challenges faced by OECD countries; and in particular, addressing issues of access, quality, diversity, child poverty and educational disadvantage. Starting Strong II outlines the progress made by the participating countries in responding to the key aspects of successful ECEC policy outlined in the previous volume, Starting Strong (OECD, 2001). It offers many examples of new policy initiatives adopted in the ECEC field. In their conclusion, the authors identify ten policy areas for further critical attention from governments. The book also presents country profiles, which give an overview of ECEC systems in all 20 participating countries.