‘Distance creates distance’: preschool staff experiences and reflections concerning preschool introduction during the covid-19-Pandemic

Forskningsoutput: TidskriftsbidragArtikel i vetenskaplig tidskriftPeer review

Sammanfattning

The social restrictions during the covid-19 pandemic have challenged many aspects of preschool everyday life. Particularly vulnerable to these restrictions is the aspect of introducing new children to preschool, since preschool introduction constitutes a natural arena for establishment of preschool staff’s relationships with children and their parents. Based on analysis of open-ended survey data (N = 465), the present study explores how Swedish preschool staff has experienced and dealt with the pandemic restrictions during preschool introduction. Our qualitative analysis resulted in three categories and six subcategories, including results demonstrating that social distancing-restrictions accentuate the importance of engaging relationally with the families, while simultaneously constituting a disconcerting complication since the physical distance constrains the important relationship-building between staff and parents. Moreover, the children seem to interpret the parent-staff physical distance as relational distance, which negatively affects their emerging relationship to preschool staff. Our results also show that how parental participation is organised during preschool introduction may be of critical importance for staff-child relational establishment, providing insights for researchers and practitioners in the field valuable to consider also in a non-pandemic context.

Originalspråkengelska
Antal sidor17
TidskriftInternational Journal of Early Years Education
Volym31
Nummer1
Tidigt onlinedatum2022 jan. 17
DOI
StatusPublished - 2023

Ämnesklassifikation (UKÄ)

  • Pedagogik

Fingeravtryck

Utforska forskningsämnen för ”‘Distance creates distance’: preschool staff experiences and reflections concerning preschool introduction during the covid-19-Pandemic”. Tillsammans bildar de ett unikt fingeravtryck.

Citera det här