Följ mig bortåt vägen... : om pedagogisk handledning i förskolan

Sammanfattning: The main issue of this work concerns the meaning of educational supervisionas a tool for collaborative work-related knowledge formation in preschool.The study is based upon and complements the analysis of the phenomenoneducational supervision in a previous study presented in my previousbook Det mångtydiga mötet – ett försök att förstå komplexiteten i pedagogiskhandledning med yrkesverksamma [The many folded encounter – anattempt to understand the complexity in collaborative educational supervision].Supervision dialogues are in the focus as one of several tools for developingthe content of knowledge in preschool, the knowledgebase of the professionals,and their coping with professional issues within their daily work.These two studies together form my licentiate treatise. For studying the phenomenon,two perspectives have been used: a societal and an inter-subjectiveperspective. Educational supervision, as an epistemic culture, is analysed inrelation to an emerging knowledge society.The implementation of a new curriculum for preschool, with its model forparticipatory goal-steering, has been the basis for the analysis of the supervisionprocess as an activity for knowledge formation. The analysis is relatedto curriculum theory. Issues related to power are crucial in contexts for supervision.These are analysed with regards to the participators in the supervisiondialogue on the one hand, and to institutional actors, e.g. the relationshipbetween university and preschool and between the professionals in a localpreschool and the administrative level of the municipality, on the other. Thefundamental premise of the work has been that supervision is to be conductedon the conditions of those being supervised.The study relies on previous experiences of and reflections on supervisionas well as on consultee-centered case consultation. Further material and methodsused for the study are interviews with supervisors and supervised, andtextual analysis of contemporary educational literature on supervision. Thelatter includes both a close and a distanced re-reading of my above mentionedbook. Educational supervision of professionals seems to have developedinto a specific domain within the field of supervision. As a result of the review,supervision was categorised as three approaches with regards to their respectiveoverarching goal.The potentially positive and negative effects of supervision, as well assome pitfalls, have been identified. The conclusions concern criteria for goodsupervision that contribute to a dialogue for knowledge formation within aninter-subjective perspective. An inter-subjective relation, with an object forsupervision that is negotiated with regards to autonomy as well as reciprocalityis emphasized. A narrative strategy for supervision is seen as a possibilityfor developing a professional language and a domain for further investigations.