Talking about children’s resistance to the institutional order and teachers in preschool

Abstract

This article highlights the parent—teacher conferences in the Swedish preschool and the talk about children’s inappropriate and undesirable behaviour in a preschool setting.The focus of the article concerns how teachers talk about children’s resistance to the social order in preschool and especially how children show resistance to teachers. The empirical material consists of 22 audio-taped conferences included in a larger study of parent—teacher conferences in a Swedish preschool setting. The analysis reveals five different strategies concerning the talk about children’s resistance to the practitioners and the institution: physical resistance, emotional resistance, social resistance, verbal resistance and resistance through rejection. In addition, the article discusses what is expected of a ‘normal’ preschool child.