Integration i institutionaliserad verksamhet : en studie av gruppintegration av hörselskadade och döva barn i förskolan

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study was to compare two preschools with respect to how they reacted to and developed a programme for group-based integration of heating-impaired and deaf children. Two main issues were addressed: (1) How the two preschools reacted to and developed the integration programme as regards: (a) the attitudes of the staff to the programme's goals and means; (b) the work of the staff (forms of work, purpose/content and teaching activities); and (c) the children's play, particularly as it relates to social interaction between hearing impaired/deaf and hearing children. (2) To what extent possible differences in patterns of development between the two preschools could be explained in terms of the different conditions (frame factors) under which the programme was carried out. The process of integration was studied from an implementation perspective, that is, as a process of change. This approach highlights the significance of the preschool as an organization. Consequently, theories of and research on organizational processes were, together with implementation reseach, used as a theoretical framework for the study.At an early stage of integration there were many similarities between the two preschools. In both cases there was a clear orientation towards a social, and not just a situational, integration of the heating-impaired and deaf children. Whilst this orientation largely remained the same in one of the preschools during the study period, 1982 to 1987, in the other preschool there was a shift towards social segregation within the framework of situational integration. This change in orientation found expression both in changes in the attitude of staff towards integration and in changes in the forms of work used. An attempt was made to explain the observed differences in development patterns between the two preschools in terms of programme-related. organizational. and community-related frame factors of the integration programme. Important explanatory factors were found in all three categories.