An ‘Ethics of resistance’ challenges taken-for-granted ideas in Swedish early childhood education

Abstract

In the present action-research project, three teachers and the researcher engaged in a series of meetings to analyze children's drawings from several different theoretical perspectives, or ‘readings’. Using two interrelated processes, deconstructive talks and an ethic of resistance, the teachers purposefully sought to recognize and challenge the taken-for-granted ideas, biases, hidden agendas, and theoretical discourses that informed their daily teaching practices. Within a feminist post-structural framework, discourse analysis was conducted on transcripts of these meetings. The study illustrates how deconstructive talks and an ethic of resistance enhanced the teachers’ awareness of multiple theoretical perspectives, as well as their understanding of how their own assumptions and values can impact children's learning. Ultimately, the teachers realized that their biases resulted in inequities, including gendered inequities, in their evaluations of the children's work. This realization, then, led to a re-conceptualization of pedagogical decision-making as a fundamentally ethical matter, closely related to egalitarianism as a central feature in the Nordic concept of the good childhood.