| Summary: | Intercultural education in Sweden is needed more than ever, because preschools are increasingly characterized by groups of children with diverse backgrounds. Guided play is an ideal educational tool for preschool teachers to promote intercultural values, since it combines the joy of play with cultural learning, so I wanted to investigate whether this tool is being utilized or not. This study explores how preschool teachers define intercultural education; the ways preschool teachers use guided play to promote intercultural values; and which (if any) differences there are in teachers’ practices to promote intercultural values depending on the extent of cultural and linguistic diversity present in the group of children they work with. The study also considers preschool teachers’ ideas about what educational policymakers could do to facilitate the endeavor of promoting intercultural values at preschool. The study is based on six semi-structured, individual interviews with preschool teachers who currently work in Swedish preschools. The research results show that there are a number of definitions for intercultural education in use by Swedish preschool teachers, rather than a single, universal definition, and that guided play is used a lot in both direct and indirect ways to promote intercultural values by preschool teachers. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of four key findings: 1) the definition of intercultural education is interpreted in different ways by preschool teachers; 2) preschool teachers use guided play in a variety of ways to promote intercultural values; 3) the way the preschool teachers work with intercultural values depends on whether children have reached verbal ability or whether the majority of the group speak the Swedish language; 4) preschool teachers believe that educational policymakers can contribute to their endeavor in promoting intercultural values in preschool education by a variety of ways.
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