Abstract
A new, revised curriculum for the Swedish preschool came into effect in July 2019. According to the National Agency of Education, it differs from its predecessor by putting a greater emphasis on care and teaching. This paper studies how the child is conceptualized in relation to learning and care in the new curriculum. Informed by a posthumanist approach and childhood studies, it scrutinizes how the child is positioned as a being and/or becoming child, an entangled and/or separate child, and, an active and/or passive child. Furthermore, it explores how the child appears in relation to human and non-human agents. The dominant, recurring conceptualization of the child is the child as becoming and passive. Learning and caring processes mainly come across as unidirectional - from adult to child – and future orientated. Although the preschool child is connected to a social context, the child predominantly appears as separate from others rather than entangled.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 42-55 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | Education in the North |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 12 Dec 2019 |
Keywords
- curriculum
- early childhood education and care (ECEC)
- childhood studies
- posthumanism
- Sweden
Access to Document
- Billmayer_etal_EITN_A_Becoming_Humanist_VOR
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.