Fr n g rande till l rande och f rst else; En studie av l rares l rande inom estetik

The aim of this article is to analyse teachers’ changing ways of talking about children’s aesthetic learn- ing in the early years as a result of a research and development project. With a point of departure in developmen- tal and variation theory, a praxis oriented project was designed with the aim of finding out whether collaborative talk and meta-cognitive dialogues could contribute to children’s learning of music, dance and poetry. The partici- pating teachers were offered in-service training in order to develop a new way of teaching and new ways of think- ing about the curriculum and children’s learning. Interviews with the teachers were carried out at the beginning and the end of the project. The teachers’ learning was expressed in changed ways of talking about aesthetics and learning. From an emphasis on personality development and the teacher’s lack of expertise with the aesthetic sub- jects as an obstacle, the teachers expressed a view of having become more aware of the concept of learning objects in the aesthetics, of their own role as teachers in directing children’s attention and to listen to children. The teach- ers thus gained a new way of talking about themselves as teachers and about children’s learning within music, dance and poetry.