Technology in pre-school and primary school analyzed in a degree project perspective

• Today, technology is a very important part of our society, further more it has be-come apparent that an early start with this subject is important to arouse young peoples interest. Therefore, also preschool educators and teacher for the early years of primary school need knowledge in technology. In that sense it is worrying to read the report on the new syllabus for teacher education in Sweden (SOU 2008:109), since the subject syllabus for technology has been strongly reduced for these categories of teachers.Technology is a relatively young school subject in Sweden. It has been compulsory in the Swedish curriculum since 1980 (Skolöverstyrelsen, 1980), with its own syl-labus since 1994 (Utbildningsdepartementet, 1994). Therefore, some of the teach-ers teaching the subject today lack experience of being taught technology them-selves. In addition, many of them have only little or no background education in the subject at all (Bjurulf, 2005; Teknikföretagen, 2005). In the first Swedish cur-riculum for preschool, technology is mentioned only once: Develop their ability to build, create and design using different materials and techniques (Utbildningsde-partementet, 2006, p 9). This raises questions about how technology in preschool and school settings is presented to the children.The purpose of the study is to find out how technology in the Swedish preschools and primary schools, is construed in degree projects in the frame of the teacher training programme at Karlstad University (2007-2008).The results from this study indicate that there is a need of skills development by educators, both in pre- and primary school, concerning technology. This may be the reason why the trainee teachers themselves carry through exercises in technology, in the frame of their degree projects.The results also indicate differences between boys and girls, where the boys focus more on functional aspects during their construction work, while the girls focus more on the appearance of the artifacts. Preschools that are organized from a gen-der perspective encourage children to play in a more varying way. When the pre-schools are organized in a traditional way, with dolls rooms and building rooms, the girls often misses the chance to play with construction toys.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Pedagogiskt arbete (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Pedagogical Work (hsv//eng)

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Pedagogiskt arbete

Educational Work

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