Sju barn lär sig läsa och skriva : Familjeliv och populärkultur i möte med förskola och skola

• Main Author: Fast, Carina
• Format: Doctoral Thesis
• Language: Swedish
• Published: Uppsala universitet, Pedagogiska institutionen 2007
• Subjects: Education; literacy; ethnography; text; popular culture; media; habitus; capital; Pedagogik
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-7490; http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:isbn:978-91-554-6795-1

This thesis is an ethnographic study in which seven Swedish children from different social and cultural environments were followed over three years. The study began when the children were four years old. The main aim of this thesis is to investigate through what social and cul-tural practices seven children meet literacy events in their families. A second aim is to track informal and everyday literacy events which the children take part in or practice on their own. A further aim is to study the transition be-tween home, preschool, preschool class and primary school in order to de-termine to what extent and in what ways the children are allowed to use their previous experience with and knowledge of literacy. The results show that the children are socialised in practices rich in liter-acy events via their culture, traditions, language and religion. The children practise reading and writing in a number of contexts. This occurs long before the pupils have been exposed to formal education. In the work on this study, it has also become clear that the seven children, regardless of their cultural, language or socioeconomic background, share experiences and knowledge relating to popular culture and the media. The children have a common understanding of texts in the form of words, names, images and icons. The value of this knowledge and experience is often as-signed by the children themselves in their contact with other children. The seven children, in this study, come to preschool and primary school with a wealth of experience in literacies from their family lives. Some chil-dren are allowed to bring their experience to the classroom. For them, there is continuity between literacy practices at home and at school. Others are forced to leave their experience outside the classroom. What is common to all children is that their knowledge about literacy related to popular culture and the media has a low cultural value in instructional settings.