Preschool teachers’ teaching assignment : Experiences of the conditions and challenges of the teaching assignment

The Swedish preschools are tasked with providing education through teaching, and as a part of this mission preschool teachers have a special responsibility to lead the educational work. The purpose of the study is to contribute knowledge about preschool teachers´ educational responsibilities from a lifeworld phenomenological perspective. The method used consists of qualitative semi-structured interviews with six preschool teachers. The collected data was then analyzed using a lifeworld phenomenological approach. The results show that the essence of the experiences of the educational assignment is that the teaching assignment is understood differently by the various preschool teachers, that teaching mainly occurs spontaneously but also within planned projects, and that preschool teachers have different views on their role in the teaching assignment. The results also show that preschool teachers primarily experience challenges in providing high-quality education, rather than conditions. These challenges include having too little planning time for organizing and evaluating teaching activities. Additionally, preschool teachers feel that there are too large child groups sizes and too low staff density, and that organizational factors such as staff shortages and financial constrains, impact their ability to deliver high quality education in preschool settings. The study concludes that preschool teachers need better conditions to be able to provide high-quality education. This could be achieved by creating opportunities for preschool teachers to meet and discuss the teaching assignment, as well as by ensuring they get the right organizational conditions, including more planning time, smaller child group sizes or increased staffing.