Dokumentationssyndromet : En interaktionistisk och socialkritisk studie av förskolans dokumentations- och bedömningspraktik

Sammanfattning: The aim of the study is to contribute with knowledge about preschool documentation and assessment practice. The starting point is the interaction taking place in situations where teachers and/or children simultaneously conduct some form of documentation. The focus lies on the way this interaction and, consequently, these situations can be perceived from a socialinteractionist and social-critical perspective.Goffman’s social interaction theory has been used to analyze and interpret the interaction arising in documentation situations. Reed’s concept of maximal interpretation with a utopian referent has also been useful in the analyses. The empirics consist of video observations of everyday documentation situations comprising interaction between teacher and child. The primary interaction theory concepts used in the analysis include definition of a situation, framing and secondary adaptation.The analysis shows that, on the basis of different interaction patterns, teachers and children make different definitions and framings of documentation situations. Teacher definitions seem task-oriented, including a predetermined goal and the expected result of the activity. Children appear more spontaneously driven and seem to act on the assumption that the activity tends to change. The analysis also indicates that the teacher largely tries to make children share her definition by speaking in questions. Maintaining the activity as such and hence its definition seems to be an overarching aim among the teachers. In cases when the expected outcome does not harmonize with the actual one but results in a performance gap, a transformation takes place in that things are reinterpreted into something else. What also emerges from the result is that both teachers and children seem to adapt to current institutional documentation and assessment practice expectations and demands. Teachers’ adaptation is expressed in that they seem to act as though there is no performance gap between the predetermined and the actual result. This gives rise to an as if practice. The children on their part seem to adapt by directing their performance to harmonize with what seems to be expected by the teacher.To create meaning in what is said or done in the specific activity, the aim of the situation must be clarified by the participant. In other words, teachers and children need to arrive at a mutual definition of what is going on or what is intended to go on. The result indicates that no clarification has been made of what a documentation situation can or should mean. Both parties seem to interact on the basis of implicit or taken-for-granted definitions of what is or is supposed to be going on in the situation. The vulnerability of reaching a mutual framing of the situations and of different adaptations indicates the necessity of considering what learning or what other aspects can be made visible through the documentations taking place in the analyzed situations and in what ways preschool documentation and assessment practice may promote or restrain children’s lifelong urge to learn.