Barns inflytande i undervisning för hållbar konsumtion i en förskolegrupp
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.63310/edu.2026.2.61583Keywords:
förskola, handlingskompetens, hållbar utveckling, inflytande, undervisningAbstract
Sustainability education is mandatory in Swedish preschools, yet young children often experience sustainability issues as frightening, complex and beyond their influence. This study explores how preschool children (ages 3–5) can exercise agency and influence in teaching activities focused on sustainable consumption. Using video observations, teacher documentation, and children’s drawings, we analysed two teaching sessions involving six children and one preschool teacher. The analysis uses Practical Epistemological Analysis and Epistemological Moves (direction-givers) to examine how influence emerged during the process. Findings reveal a three-step progression – anticipation, exploration, and fulfilment – in which children actively deliberated and proposed solutions for transporting fruit to their preschool in sustainable ways. Teacher moves, especially generative, confirming, instructional and reconstructive strategies, support children’s participation and sustain a pluralistic, dialogic inquiry. The study illustrates how early childhood education for sustainability can foster agency and democratic engagement by treating children’s proposals as epistemically relevant and by keeping the sustainability problem open to deliberation.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Maria Hedefalk, Cecilia Caiman, Lolita Gelinder, Christina Ottander
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