Educare. 2014:2, Childhood, learning and didactics

The articles in this volume are all related to the National Research Schools of Childhood, Learning and Didactics (RSCLD). The research schools are an expression of a government interest both to strengthen education and research in early years—especially in areas like language, values, science and mathematics—and to involve preschool teachers and teachers in research development. The role of research in developing ECEC and school policies has also increased. Different research programs and school research institutes are funded with the aim of contributing to policy making, researchbased recommendations and better practices. The Research Schools of Childhood, Learning and Didactics focus on the development of knowledge in relation to preschool and school in the early years. They draw on the institutional cooperation between five universities/ university colleges in Sweden: Gothenburg, Linköping, Karlstad, Kristianstad and Malmö University (host university). The contributing researchers represent subjects such as pedagogy, subject theory and didactics, and present a thematic, multi-disciplinary approach to ‘Childhood, Learning and Didactics’. RSCLD is anchored in the respective teacher educations at the five contributing institutions. To date, we have administrated three different research schools for preschool teachers and teachers with this focus. An important and emphasised part of the program is to problematise and develop subject-specific didactics as a field of research, beyond the prevalent focus on older children. Questions to do with children’s learning, didactic choices and educational positions need to be problematised and re-examined at a time with many societal changes. New formations of childhood and learning in transgression force us to meet demands for new and viable knowledge. In this context, subject knowledge and didactics are scrutinised as educational practices in preschool and school for early years. The research schools pay special attention to the child’s perspective, to democracy and to children’s early mathematical and linguistic development related to multimodal media, subject theory and teaching practice. The research schools are also examining how the fields of natural science and sustainable development, as well as value education, are realised in preschool and in the early years of school. Early Childhood Education and Care has never been in focus as much as in recent years. In OECD- EU- and national governing documents and agreements, one repeatedly finds expressions like ‘Start Early - Starting Strong - Readiness for School’. To draw quotations from some influential documents and researchers, ‘Improving pre-primary provision and widening access to it are potentially the most important contributions that school systems can make to improving opportunities’ (OECD Starting Strong 11), and ‘Early skills breed later skills because early learning begets later learning. … Investment in the young is warranted’ (Heckman & Masterov, 2007).