Digital play as a means to develop children’s literacy and power in the Swedish preschool

This paper presents different angles on the subject of digital play as a means to develop children’s literacy and power, using an online ethnographical study of Swedish preschool teachers’ discussions in informal online forums. Question posts (n = 239) were analysed using the Technological Pedagogical Knowledge framework and the Caring, Nurturing and Teaching framework, with the aim of understanding how teachers intended to support children’s literacy development with tablets. Literacy development can be understood as a social practice that needs to develop along with changes in society’s demands on citizens. The results presented indicate that school subject oriented skills are predominantly present in the mind-set of these preschool teachers. When digital play is increasingly used for pedagogical purposes in preschools, that also means that preschools have expanded their opportunities to work with children’s literacy development. For preschool teachers, it is important to discuss how literacy development can be supported in a contemporary media landscape.

"[T]he pedagogically influential rationalities found by Ljung-Djärf (2004), caring, nurturing and teaching, are still found in the mind-set of Swedish preschool teachers when tablets are being introduced in their practice. Another conclusion is that the participants view tablets either as an available pedagogical option or as a tool for teaching and learning.... [I]t is important for hesitant preschool teachers to consider the contemporary context of children’s play and learning (Edwards 2014) and how digital technologies are an integral part of contemporary life (Findahl and Davidsson 2015)." (Authors, 302)