Research on Early Childhood Education

Research on Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) including School-age Educare

The purpose of RECEUM is to create a lively research environment on early childhood education and school-age educare. We aim to bring together research, practice and theory, and to build successful networks and collaborations between researchers, teachers and municipalities.

This research environment consists of about 20 researchers and teachers in the fields of early childhood education and care, and school-age educare. Our research focuses on three main areas:

• Teaching, learning and activities in ECEC and School-age educare

This area covers research on aesthetics, language development, intercultural education, science and sustainability, and examines the wide questions of the nature of knowledge in research and practice in this field. Subject-didactic and special educational perspectives as well as socio-material and spatial perspectives are common. In addition, our research in this area is concerned with teacher education and professional development, and issues of organization, and curriculum.

• Values and identities

In the multifaceted nature of early childhood, we research questions of democracy, equality, children's influence and participation. We examine the dimensions of socio-economic background, ethnicity and gender, and how the contexts and processes within ECEC & leisure time contribute to the shaping of identities and values.

• Policy and schoolification

This research area is concerned with national and international policy on early childhood education and school-age educare. In particular, it focuses on contemporary Swedish and European policy frameworks, marketization, privatization and curriculum reforms.