Estetiken i praktiken

Aesthetics in Practice: About the Relationship Between Aesthetics and Pedagogy When Reading Lisen Adbåge’s Samtidigt som The purpose of this article is to investigate the relationship between aesthetics and pedagogy by focusing on a picturebook’s aesthetic design and students’ understanding of time as abstraction. The survey uses Lisen Adbåge’s picturebook Samtidigt som (At the Same Time As, 2017), which was read and discussed in three Swedish preschool classes. In the study, the book’s artistic forms of expression are linked to students’ statements about what ”at the same time as” means. The research questions are: a) How does time appear as a phenomenon through the book’s artistic forms of expression? b) What do the children focus on in doublespreads that arouse their interest when they reason about what ”at the same time” means? and c) Is it possible to discern what specifically triggers thoughts about time through the aesthetic design of the book? To answer the research questions, theory for picturebook analysis (Laukka) and play research (Pramling et al.) is used, as well as conversation analysis (Sidnell and Stivers). Through the children’s comments when reading the book aloud to them, it turns out that seven of the 13 doublespreads in the book attract the children’s interest more than the others, and these are the doublespreads that contain an interplay between what happens (”as is”) and may happen (”as if”). Play research’s use of ”as is” and ”as if” is therefore proposed as a starting point for understanding children’s interpretation of a picturebook, that is, as thought play. Also, this implies that aesthetic means are important for developing an understanding of abstractions such as time.