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Swedish Preschools Stand for Democracy,

Equality, and Playful Learning

By Marianne Skardéus and Susanne Klaar

Preschool curriculum and practice are of interest worldwide. For this article, Marianne Skardéus (MS) interviewed
Susanne Klaar (SK), senior lecturer at the University of Borås, Sweden, in October 2023 with the purpose of presenting
the Swedish preschool concept.

MS: Who is Susanne Klaar?
SK: I started my career as a preschool teacher in 1985, and in 1999, I also took
a primary school teacher exam within the subjects of natural science didactics
and mathematic didactics. I started my doctoral studies in 2007 and completed
my thesis in January 2013. I now work as a Senior Lecturer, where I mainly
instruct preschool teacher students at the University of Borås in Sweden.
My research concerns education in preschool, teachers’ teaching, and young
children’s learning. In my research, as well as in my own teaching, I take a
theoretical starting point by using John Dewey and his pragmatic philosophy
and action theory. Within this framework, I understand learning as relying on
action-centered inquiry processes that take place in and through encounters with
the social and physical environment (see Klaar & Öhman, 2022).

MS: What is, in your opinion, the most important aspect to consider when
it comes to early childhood education and children’s learning in general?
SK: Education must be meaningful for every learning student. This is, of course,
important for everyone but maybe even more important when the learner is
very young. One way of making education meaningful for preschool children
it to make it play-based and experience-based in a way that it takes a starting
point in children´s interests, needs, and motivation. I often use the expression
experience-based challenges when I talk to my preschool teacher students at
my university. Experience-based challenges cover both the child’s own starting
point in what (s)he already knows, can do, or is familiar with and the importance
of a present teacher who can guide the child toward new, unknown, but not-
unexpected experiences.
My research also shows how young children communicate their experiences
and their meaning making through and with their bodies. Thus, when teachers
are reflecting over and evaluate young children’s learning, I think it is of high
importance that the teachers consider children’s bodily actions. For example, if
the preschool teacher sees a child struggle with getting some speed on a swing
and the movements of the legs back and forth suddenly make the swing move
a little, the child’s actions get meaning, and the child has learned to handle the
swing in a new, purposeful way. Teachers sometimes tend to listen more to verbal
communication, but even if the child does not say “look, I got some speed,” both
the meaning-making process and the meaning-making content get visible in the
bodily actions.

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