Broadcasting and narrowcasting – digital communication in Swedish preschoolResearch topic/aim Previous research (Wahlgren, 2024) has shown that photographs broadcasted from Swedish preschools through public channels or social media such as Instagram often portray children as a homogenous group in which everyone appears to participate in all scheduled activities. However, digital communication from preschools operates on two levels: broadly to a public audience, and narrowly to individual families. This paper aims to explore differences between broadcasted and narrowcasted preschool photographs, focusing on how visibility, transparency, and participation are constructed through images of children and activities.Theoretical framework According to Barasch and Berger (2014), the size of an audience influences the content of communication. Their study found that communication directed to a large audience (“broadcasting”) tends to be self-focused, while messages to a smaller audience (“narrowcasting”) are more recipient-oriented. This theoretical distinction provides a lens for analysing preschool communication, where images serve both institutional and relational purposes. The study also draws on Critical Image Analysis (Rose, 2016), which considers not only the content of images but also their producers and consumers. In this paper, preschool photographs are understood as discursive narratives that construct ideas about preschool, education, and childhood.Methodology/research design A qualitative, visual analysis was conducted on a selection of broadcasted images from open preschool social media channels and narrowcasted photographs shared through digital communication platforms such as Tyra and Unikum. The analysis followed Rose’s (2016) framework for Critical Image Analysis, focusing on representational, compositional, and social aspects of the photographs. Ethical considerations regarding children’s integrity and digital visibility guided the analytical process.Expected results/findings Preliminary findings suggest that both broadcasted and narrowcasted photographs tend to present preschool life in impersonal and activity-focused ways, depicting children from behind, from a distance, or from above so that individual identities are obscured (Wahlgren, 2024; forthcoming). This visual strategy conveys a sense of inclusiveness while maintaining anonymity. However, significant variation was found in the narrowcasted material: a few children had multiple personalised photographs in their individual folders (Wahlgren, forthcoming), aligning with curriculum goals of cooperation with families and fostering parental involvement in preschool education.Relevance to Nordic educational research In the current Swedish context, preschool quality and conditions are widely debated, with recurring concerns about large child groups and insufficiently trained staff. Against this backdrop, communication and transparency between preschools and families become essential in creating trust and supporting children’s well-being. By examining how digital visual communication constructs and mediates notions of participation and care, this study contributes to Nordic educational research on preschool professionalism, home–school collaboration, and the visual politics of early childhood education.

For decades, research has shown that girls are superior to boys in most school subjects (Bergstrand, 2022; Stenberg, 2025), and high academic achievement has often been regarded as an indicator of a successful municipality (Segerholm & Hult, 2018). Recent reports from Sweden indicate a shift in this trend and the performance gap between girls and boys is now narrowing. This change is primarily driven by a decline in girls’ academic achievement, particularly among girls with a Swedish background (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2025). At the same time, increasing levels of mental issues and low school satisfaction have been observed among young girls (MUCF, 2024:1). Historically, girls’ well-being has been treated as a secondary concern, as long as they continued to achieve good academic results (Bergstrand, 2022). 

Through a literature review examining girls’ academic outcomes from social, economic, and cultural perspective (Corbett & Forsey, 2017), this study seeks to understand how educational equity is shaped by structural conditions and how these intersect with gendered expectations in education. The study asks: How do societal discourses influence girls’ academic performance in contemporary education?  

Wahlgren et al. (2022) used Butler’s (1990) concept of performativity to analyze how children constructed themselves in accordance with gender-stereotypical expectations in their own narratives about preschool life. The concept demonstrates how discourses shape subjectivities and regulates the ways in which individuals construct themselves. By theorizing previous research on this topic through the lens of performativity, we can discern dominant discourses surrounding girls’ achievements as performatives acts that iteratively produce intelligible performances among female students. In this way, performativity offers an analytical framework for examining how discursive practices in education generate and legitimize specific subject positions—such as the “successful girl” or the “underachieving boy.”  

A literature review of research on girls’ academic achievement will be conducted using the S.M.A.R.T. method (Systematic Mapping and Analysis of Research Topologies) (Nilholm, 2017). This approach enables systematic identification and critical analysis of existing studies concerning gender-related educational outcomes.  

Preliminary findings indicate that although boys’ underachievement has long been a central focus in educational policy and research, the emerging decline in girls’ academic outcomes calls for renewed attention. The anticipated results aim to illuminate the gendered discourses, that shape girls’ motivation, well-being, and academic trajectories, thereby contributing to a more nuanced understanding of educational equity in a changing society.  

The observed decline in girls’ academic performance is not merely a national concern but also reflects broader societal transformations within the Nordic welfare context. Understanding the intersections of gender, well-being, and academic achievement is essential for maintaining both educational quality and social cohesion. This study contributes to ongoing Nordic debates on equity, inclusion, and the aim of education in times of social and cultural transition. 

Gender equality is essential for sustainable development. However, several constraints seem to make achieving it difficult. This paper builds on a study of 1575 preschool photographs (Wahlgren 2023), where 320 were taken outdoors. The study was carried out in four Swedish preschools and aimed to examine how children are portrayed in everyday preschool photographs through critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2003) and critical image analysis (Rose 2016).

Altogether, the study showed how indoor photographs were focusing on conventional masculine coded activities like production and accomplishment, while outdoor photographs were picturing feminine coded values as care, empathy and sensitivity (Wahlgren and Andersson 2022; Wahlgren and Günter 2024). Some previous research has suggested nature a gender-neutral space (Änggård 2011). Other research shows gender-based differences in children’s outdoor play, and argues that natural spaces are not in themselves providing gender neutrality (Günther-Hanssen 2020). 

In this paper, photographs are understood as language, which is perceived as an active part in constructing norms and identities. Further, the theoretical frame of Hirdmans (1988) gender order is used to discuss differences of values portrayed in indoor- versus outdoor photographs. According to the gender order, women are perceived as close to nature and feelings, while men are described as rational and logical. Moreover, expected male characteristics are valued higher than female (Hirdman 1988). 

Nature excursions are well established in Swedish preschools (Ärlemalm-Hagser 2013), and photographs are used to document and communicate everyday practice. A revision of the curriculum suggests contact with different types of nature to be further underscored as important for all children. One reason for this is climate change and the need of increased knowledge about nature and species. 

This paper constitutes an important basis for discussions about which values to emphasize and mediate in preschool photographs. Outdoor photographs contradict norms by underscoring conventionally feminine values such as care and empathy as desirable for everyone. Sustainable ecological development can thereby also mean shifted gender hierarchies.  

According to the Swedish preschool curriculum, preschool should nurture children to become active, gender equal citizens in a democratic society (Skolverket, 2018). Over 95% of the children in Sweden are enrolled in preschool in their younger years. Thereby everyday preschool documentation photographs of children affect children’s construction of themselves and other people. 

Sweden is ranked as one of the most gender equal countries in the world (Word Economic Forum, 2022), and preschool photographs portray preschool as a space where all children, regardless of gender, participate in all activities. Though, research shows how girls maintain adults’ stories and routines when talking about the photographs, while boys tell their own individual stories (Wahlgren et al., 2022). The gender equality, portrayed in the photographs, is perhaps just an image of “the desirable practice”.

Expectations of preschool girls are that they shall be nice, quiet, social, verbal and caring (Hellman, 2010), while boys are expected to offer resistance, and occupy more time and space (Eidevald, 2009). Preschool girls are thereby expected to act logic and responsibly, while boys are expected to be more erratic. These expectations are somehow opposite to those conventionally associated to grown-up women and men (Hirdman, 1988).

My presentation uses feminist perspectives to discuss how the gender equal discourse, which characterizes Swedish preschool, results in a society, where men are over-represented in denying human influenced climate change (Remsö et al., 2024), and most women have been exposed to male violence (Strid et al., 2023). According to Jackson and Bussey (2020), young men feel the pressure to act gender-stereotypical and to avoid feminine-typed behaviors, while young women feel the pressure to act outside stereotyped gender behaviors.

To examine these thoughts, I want to display the changes of expectations of femininity and masculinity through growing up. Notions of how to be a girl/boy versus a woman/man are important to explore the development of toxic masculinity, which uses violence towards women and towards the planet. Moreover, this discussion will shed light on children as competent subjects, whose competences and experiences can be helpful in creating liveable worlds and a sustainable future for all.

Photographs of children are used on a daily basis in Swedish preschool practice. Although the preschool curriculum prescribes gender equality and celebration of diversity, photographs of indoor activities have shown to display a homogenous view of children and an emphasis on masculine-coded productions and accomplishments. This article examines 325 photographs of outdoor activities from Swedish preschools with diverse ethnic compositions. Our results reveal a Swedish natureculture identity that is more explicitly performed in the multi-ethnic preschool classes. Since ideals of gender equality and closeness to nature connect to the image of Swedishness, this can be understood as compensatory pedagogy. Moreover, the natureculture identity appears to be neutral in relation to ethnicity and gender, which risks rendering diversity invisible. However, the displayed neutrality is also possible to understand as working towards equity where conventionally feminine values such as care, empathym and sensitivity are underscored as desirable for everyone.

Photographs constitute an important visual language in contemporary Swedish preschool, as they are legible to young children themselves. This article aims to examine which notions of the child are represented in preschool photographs, and how these notions correlate to notions of the child expressed in Swedish preschool curriculum. The analysis uses Fairclough's critical discourse analyses and the critical concepts of performativity and celebrated subject positions. First, the curriculum's descriptions of the child and modes of learning in preschool are analysed. Second, photographs from four preschools are thematised, analysed and theorized, with a focus on the performances and subject positions repeatedly displayed. Results show that while the curriculum promotes holistic performances where play and care are interwoven with education, the photographs celebrate performances within teacher-led educational situations, and invisibilize care as well as play. The focus on education in the photographs corresponds with international trends regarding the professionalization and "schoolification" of early childhood education. Crucially this is connected to gendered meanings linked to care and education, respectively.

Digitalisation has changed communications dramatically over the last 20 years. This has entailed that preschool documentation of children and their activities, previously communicated with enrolled families, have become part of a mass distribution of social images. Thereby photographs, which initially aimed to involve the families in their children's education, are made visible to larger groups in society. This article examines digitally circulated photographs from three preschools in Sweden and, using critical image analyses, relates them to visibility, transparency and participation. The results show that digitally circulated photographs mediate a normative image of a universal preschool child, where the extended visibility of the preschool does not seem to make children's different interests, characteristics and standpoints visible. In fact, the children themselves are, in order to protect them, almost made invisible in the photographs. The discussion of this article concerns the ethics of a mass distribution of images where children are portrayed as a uniform group, and raises the fact that children become dependent on adults to interact with the photographs. Aims of marketing seem to become superior to aims of involvement, and preschools are able to tailor their communications to reach certain audiences. Thereby digital communication seems to contribute to increasing rather than decreasing inequalities among children.

The overall aim of this thesis is to examine children's perspectives, positions and possibilities for participation in Swedish preschool documentation practice. The empirical data consists of 1575 photographs from six preschool classes located in different suburban areas. The thesis includes four articles that examine different aspects of the practice of pedagogical documentation. In the first article the children's own stories about the photographs are analysed. In the second article, notions of the child from photographs presented on the preschool walls and from the Swedish Curriculum for the Preschool are compared. The third article examines the content and circulation of digital photographs. Finally, the fourth article explores how children are portrayed in photographs of outdoor activities. All articles are grounded in theories about power and knowledge production, such as discourse theory, and discuss intersections between age, gender, ethnicity and class.

The results show that children are capable of creating their own stories in interaction with photographs. However, their stories tend to be gender specific although the photographs mediate gender neutrality. The children mainly described their mutual relationships and, to a lesser extent, the displayed activities. The photographs align with trends of schoolification and masculine-coded production and accomplishment, while care and play are made invisible in the photographs. However, the outdoor photographs, stand out in the sample as they make children visible as sensitive and closely attached to nature. Unlike indoors photographs, outdoor photographs visibilized feminine-coded values as desirable. Outdoor and digitally circulated photographs often displayed children as anonymous, and as neutral in terms of gender and ethnicity. This could be positive since children were able to include themselves in activities represented in the photographs. At the same time, the photographs became impersonal and sometimes insipid; as the anonymisation made children's experiences and knowledge production invisible.

The thesis concludes that notions of the child, communicated in preschool photographs, are conform and make competence appear as production and accomplishment, while alternative ways of being a preschool child are made invisible. Therefore, a feminist definition of professionalisation is suggested in order to increase children's participation and incorporate alternative stories in preschool knowledge production, which, in turn, can challenge the notion of the competent child. 

Det övergripande syftet med denna avhandling är att undersöka barns perspektiv, positioner och påverkansmöjligheter i den svenska förskolans dokumentationspraktik. Empirin består av 1575 fotografier från sex förskoleavdelningar på fyra olika förskolor, belägna i olika områden runt Stockholm. Avhandlingen innehåller fyra artiklar som undersöker olika aspekter av den pedagogiska dokumentationspraktiken. I den första artikeln analyseras barnens egna berättelser om fotografierna. I den andra artikeln jämförs föreställningar om barnet från fotografier på förskolans väggar med hur barnet skrivs fram i förskolans läroplan. Den tredje artikeln undersöker innehållet och cirkueringen av digitala fotografier i olika forum och hur detta förhåller sig till barns möjligheter till delaktighet. Avslutningsvis undersöker den fjärde artikeln hur barn porträtteras i fotografier av utomhusaktiviteter. Alla artiklar är förankrade i teorier om makt och kunskapsproduktion, däribland diskursteori och diskuterar skärningspunkter mellan ålder, kön, etnicitet och klass.

Resultaten visar att barn är kapabla att skapa sina egna berättelser i interaktion med fotografierna. Deras berättelser tenderade att reproducera stereotypa könsmönster även om fotografierna förmedlade könsneutralitet. Barnen beskrev främst sina inbördes relationer och i mindre utsträckning de uppvisade aktiviteterna. Å ena sidan överensstämde fotografiernas innehåll med nyliberala trender gällande skolifiering och professionalisering av förskoleutbildningen genom att fokusera på traditionellt maskulint kodade aspekter som produktion och prestation, medan omsorg och lek osynliggjordes i fotografierna. Å andra sidan upphöjde utomhusfotografierna feminina värden genom att synliggöra barn som känsliga med samhörighet med naturen. Utomhus- och digitalt cirkulerade fotografier framställde ofta barnen som anonyma och neutrala vad gäller kön och etnicitet. Detta kan vara positivt eftersom barnen gavs möjlighet att inkludera sig själva i de framställda aktiviteterna. Samtidigt blev fotografierna opersonliga och ibland intetsägande då anonymiseringen gjorde barns situerade erfarenheter och kunskapsproduktion osynlig.

Avhandlingens slutsatser är att de föreställningar om barnet som förmedlas i fotografierna, är konforma och likställer kompetens med produktion och prestation, samtidigt som alternativa sätt att vara förskolebarn osynliggörs. För att öka barns delaktighet och införliva alternativa berättelser i förskolans kunskapsproduktion, föreslås en feministisk definition av professionalisering, vilket i sin tur kan utmana föreställningen om det kompetenta barnet.