"If I had a reason for it..." : An intersectional study of preschool teacher’s intercultural education with children books.

Abstract: The aim of this qualitative study was to examine how preschool teachers in contemporary Sweden think and talk about intercultural education in the current context in which Sweden is rapidly becoming a more culturally diverse country. Specifically, the study applied an intersectional framework to examine how teacher’s work and talk around cultural issues and how children’s books can contribute to the broader pedagogical project of developing intercultural education in preschool. The research questions guiding this research were: How do teachers in ethnically diverse preschools work with and talk about children’s books in their daily interactions with children? How do teachers in ethnically homogenous preschools work with and talk about children’s books in their daily interactions with children? Teachers from two preschools - differing in terms of the ethnic make-up of their child population - were asked to read a pair of children’s books whose storylines had obvious links to issues related to cultural diversity. The teachers were then asked to discuss the books in focus groups. Transcripts of the focus groups were then subjected to a thematic analysis from an intersectional perspective. These analyses revealed that teachers in both preschools considered children’s age and their relative intellectual and emotional competencies to be significant barriers for using culturally sensitive children’s book to promote an intercultural education in preschool. Furthermore, the teachers oriented to other social categories, such as gender and family, in their analyses of the children’s books. These findings raise questions about if and how preschool teachers choose to engage with cultural issues in their preschools.