Background: The ultimate outcome of inclusive Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), with the focus on everyday life in preschool in this dissertation, is child participation, i.e., being there and being engaged while being there. Little is known about the individual variation in child participation in preschool, and few studies have examined how the practices of preschool vary both in an international and national Swedish perspective, and what this variation may mean for child participation.

Aim: This dissertation aims to examine variations in preschool practices and environments within an international and national Swedish perspective, and to describe how these variations relate to participation in those environments for children. The findings will be discussed in relation to preschool quality, inclusive education, and the Swedish preschool for all children.

Method: Behavior count systematic observations were used to describe between- and within country variations in children’s and preschool teachers’ activities, behaviors, and environments in preschools in Sweden (n = 78 preschool units), Portugal (n = 42 classrooms), and the U.S. (n = 168 classrooms), and to provide comprehensive descriptions of activities in Swedish preschools (n = 78 preschool units). Behavior counts were also used to explore variations in observed participation patterns (based on level of engagement, associative/cooperative interactions, pretend play, and proximity to a small group including a teacher) between children in Swedish preschool free play (n = 453 children).

Results: The largest variation across the countries concerned the dominant activity setting. Free play was the main activity setting for Swedish preschools, while teacher-led whole group was dominant in Portugal and the U.S. Swedish preschoolers spent much time outdoors and had a relatively high proportion of associative child-child interactions. Across the countries, children were less engaged in their dominant activity setting. Child engagement was among the highest in teacher-led small-groups, but those occurred infrequently. For several preschool practices, the within-country variance was high in all three countries.

Swedish preschoolers focused on various contents, where construction, art, music, and less sophisticated play in small groups of children was most common, followed by pretend play. Teachers in the Swedish preschools displayed a large variety of teacher tasks where managing, i.e., organizing the child group, was most frequent.

Two groups of children displayed low-to-very-low observed participation in Swedish preschool free play. Second language learners and children from preschool units including several second language learners tended to reveal lower levels of observed participation, but not children with special education needs. Children with the lowest observed participation levels appeared unseen by preschool teachers.

Conclusions: The results reflect that cultural ideas and values are related to preschool practices on several system levels. The practices in Sweden reflect a social pedagogy tradition, whereas practices in Portugal and the U.S. reflect an early education tradition. A culture’s ideas and values also seem to be reflected in instruments measuring preschool practices and quality and demands caution when selecting measures. What children participate in, and their engagement when being there both seem influenced and defined by the activity setting. Changing activity settings more frequently may increase children’s engagement levels. In Swedish preschools, proximal processes for children’s participation may concern child-child interactions, as much as teacher-child interactions. In free play, some children do not get the support they need to participate in activities despite inclusive policies and the Swedish preschool curriculum emphasizing a “preschool for all children”.

The purpose of this scoping review was to explore operationalizations and related conceptualizations of young children's engagement in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings. The literature search was conducted in March 2021 across ERIC, PsycINFO, Scopus, and Web of Science databases, with the aim of identifying studies where child engagement or involvement in ECEC settings was quantitatively assessed. The search resulted in 5965 articles, of which 286 were included in this review. Data were extracted about engagement conceptualization, theoretical frameworks, study population, study design, and engagement measurement tools and methods. Findings show variations in definitions and measurement of child engagement. Almost two-thirds of the studies lacked an explicit definition of child engagement. Young children's engagement was typically defined as behaviors and interactions with the social and material environment, while involvement was depicted as an internal experience. The most common method of measuring children's engagement in ECEC was observations by an external observer, followed by teacher surveys. Seventy-seven unique established measures of child engagement were identified. About one-third of the identified studies relied on unestablished measures of child engagement. Measures of general child engagement in ECEC had a focus on behavioral aspects of engagement, whereas most measures with a focus on engagement in academic activities also included cognitive and emotional aspects. To advance the research of child engagement in ECEC settings, more attention should be put into clarifying the concept of child engagement in terms of its generalizability, specificity, and temporality. Corresponding operationalizations should be precisely described. Our recommendations also include validating existing measures of child engagement and developing self-reports for young children.

How preschool teachers and children spend their time in preschool sets the stage for child engagement and learning. To describe characteristics of environments and activities and to compare child engagement in indoor and outdoor free play, systematic observations of children and teachers were performed in 78 Swedish preschool units. Results showed that indoor and outdoor free play were the main activity settings. Children interacted as much with other children as with teachers. The content focus was dominated by non-pretend play, construction, art and music, followed by pretend play and academic contents. Child engagement was significantly higher in free play indoors compared to outdoors. Teachers engaged in varied tasks, but their central task was managing. Teachers were typically in proximity to small groups of children, or by themselves, and mostly talked to or listened to a single child. Findings are discussed in relation to the preschool curriculum and future research needs.

Data har samlats in med hjälp av systematiska observationer genom det manualbaserade instrumentet Child Observation in Preschool (COP) som anpassats till svensk förskolekontext. Observationerna innebär att flera ögonblicksbilder av individuella barn görs under minst en heldag i förskolan. Flera aspekter av individens aktuella aktivitetet kodas. Därefter har data summerats på individnivå och proportionerlig fördelning av aktiviteter (dividerat med individens totala antal observationer i fri lek) har kalkylerats. Frekvensdata och proportionsdata för barn återfinns i dataseten samt bakgrundsinformation om barn och avdelningar.

The participation of all children in preschool activities is the main outcome of inclusive Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). The current study used the Child Observation in Preschool (COP) to explore the observed participation patterns in the free play of a sample of 3-5-year-old Swedish preschool children (N = 453), and to examine the characteristics of the resulting clusters in terms of child and preschool unit characteristics. Based on a series of hierarchical and K-means cluster analyses, we identified eight distinct and meaningful clusters that could be ranked from very high to very low observed participation. Four of the clusters indicated average-to-very high observed participation. Two clusters indicated low-to-very low observed participation. The cluster displaying low observed participation had high proximity to a small group including teachers. On average, children in this cluster came from preschool units with significantly more second language learners. The cluster displaying a very low observed participation had low proximity to a small group including teachers. On average, children in this cluster were significantly more often second language learners, and the children came from units with a significantly higher number of resource staff. No significant differences appeared in the number of children with special educational needs across the clusters, although tendencies emerged. The results imply that the children in this sample had a varied degree of observed participation. Two clusters of children appeared to have difficulties in participating in free play activities where second language learners and children from preschool units with more second language learners were more common. Preschool teachers need to identify children who participate less in preschool activities and who might benefit from more teacher proximity. Teachers also need to reflect on how their proximity impacts the participation of children differently and on the type of support they provide when being close to the children.

Description: The purpose of this project is to conduct a scoping review of studies that assess engagement of young children in early childhood educational settings, and explore how measures of engagement are related to theoretical conceptualisations of engagement in young children.

Across countries, there are important differences related to the goals, organization, and educational philosophies of care provided to young children prior to formal schooling. Those differences are likely reflected in the classroom practices and teacher-child interactions within a country’s early childhood education and care (ECEC) classrooms. This study aims to evaluate the within-country relevance of two classroom observation measures primarily based on a behavioral count approach focused on teacher and child behaviors; and to examine preschool practices in Sweden, Portugal, and the U.S., as they reflect each country’s ECEC goals, organization, and educational philosophies. Participants are 78 preschool settings in Sweden, 42 in Portugal, and 168 in the U.S. Results show that the measures targeted culturally-relevant behaviors and provided inter-rater reliability for the behavior count variables in the three countries. Future collaborations may address additional culturally-specific variables. The behavioral descriptions yielded by combining behavioral counts of the measures are analyzed by researchers from the relevant country for insights to the country’s values related to early childhood as well as current debates regarding care for children. Measures that provide comprehensive descriptions of classroom settings and apply minimal external or comparative value judgments on the behaviors observed are of practical utility for collaborative international work.

Data har samlats in med hjälp av systematiska observationer genom de manualbaserade instrumenten Child Observation in Preschool (COP) och Teacher Observation in Preschool (TOP). Observationerna innebär att ögonblicksbilder av individuella barn/personal görs under en heldag i förskolan. Flera aspekter av individens aktuella aktivitetet kodas. Därefter har individuella data aggregerats till avdelningsnivå och procentuell fördelning av aktiviteter har kalkylerats. Aggregerad frekvensdata och proportionsdata för barn respektive personal återfinns i dataseten samt viss bakgrundsinformation om avdelningarna.