22.000 Minutes in Preschool: 5-6 Year Old Children's Activities, Language and Group Constellations in Swedish Preschools. Reports from the Department of Education and Educational Research. Report No. 1991:02

A translation of parts of a Swedish study conducted in 73 full-day and 42 part-day Swedish preschools is presented. Although official Swedish policy maintains that the two types of preschool should have the same social and educational goals, Swedish public opinion holds that full-time preschools are mainly caretaking schools, and part-time preschools are more educational. The study reported in this document involved observations of the activities, language, and groupings of 559 children of 5-6 years of age. Categorizations were made according to the principles used in the Oxford Preschool Research Study (1980). Results showed that there was more social play and social interaction without play in full-time than in part-time preschools, and that part-time preschools had more goal-oriented and traditional activities. More system stress, such as large group size, problem children, and high staff turnover, was connected to a less goal-oriented structure in full-time preschools, and the opposite was true in part-time preschools. About the same amount of time (60 to 70 minutes) was devoted to structured educational activities daily in both forms of preschool. Contains about 100 references from English language and Swedish sources. (LB)