Forskare inom Early Intervention på arbetsseminarium i Nashville, USA

Den här veckan är Eva Björck, Mats Granlund, Madeleine Sjöman och Frida Åström från CHILD-gruppen vid JU, samt CHILD-medlemmarna Lena Almqvist (Mälardalens högskola), och Alecia Samuels (University of Pretoria) på ett internationellt arbetsseminarium vid Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA, för att tillsammans med forskningspartners från fem länder, arbeta med och jämföra förskoleobservationer. Här berättar doktorand Frida Åström;

This Saturday, Eva Björck, Mats Granlund, Madeleine Sjöman, and Frida Åström from the CHILD research environment at JU, and CHILD members Lena Almqvist (Mälardalen University), and Alecia Samuels (University of Pretoria) leave for Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA, for a three-day international convening on preschool observations. The convening is a continuation of ongoing international collaborations within the CHILD research project on Children’s Participation in Preschool International (PEPI), funded by the Swedish Research Council. The convention was set in motion because of the International Conference on Participation and Engagement in Young Children in Need of Special Support, held at JU in November 2017, and a total of five countries are represented; Sweden, USA, South Africa, Portugal, and Taiwan. The aim of the convening is to share statistical knowledge on preschool observational data, collected with the instruments “Child Observation in Preschool” (COP) and “Teacher Observations in Preschool “(TOP), developed by the Peabody Research Institute at Vanderbilt University. The aim is also to brainstorm research questions that can be addressed across countries, using data from COP and TOP, and to start analyses of data. Performing analyses across countries are interesting, because preschool environments differ a lot across countries, e.g., in terms of inclusive practices, time spent outside, time spent in play activities, and teacher-child ratio, which makes it possible to study impacts of preschool environments on children’s participation. Hopefully, this convening will result in new research findings that could not have been pursued by either country alone.

Frida Åström