Kultur som mangfold og enfold i barnehagen

Abstract

In this article I focus on cultural diversity as it is presented in the Norwegian Framework Plan for the Content and Tasks of Kindergartens. In Norway ’Kindergarten’ refers to any kind of Early Childhood Education and Care institution. I argue that the understanding and interpretation of culture is too narrow in this plan. It presents culture mainly as a value and as something that should be made visible and carried out in practical work in the kindergartens. I argue that this understanding of culture and cultural diversity can lead to stereotype understanding of children – children as representatives for cultural diversity. Children should only be understood as representatives of themselves and not as some kind of cultural ”marionettes”. As an alternative to this way of understanding culture, I present the term as way of analyzing social life, as a way of thinking, and also as different kinds of practice, something that characterizes activities between people, not primarily as qualities within people.