This thesis investigates preschool as a site for sexual pedagogy. It aims to generate knowledge about sexual pedagogical discourses in Swedish preschools and how these discourses, along with the agency of children and preschool practitioners, are constituted and reconstituted over time. 

The thesis is theoretically grounded in a discourse analytical approach, drawing inspiration from Norman Fairclough’s (1992/2008) critical discourse analysis and Judith Butler’s (1993/2021) theory of performativity. Based on an ethical standpoint that children can be understood as sexual subjects and that agency is always relational and dependent on interconnections, tension emerges between the support that enables agency and the restrictions that limit it. 

Methodologically, the study combines two empirical materials: sexuality education texts for educators published between 1969 and 2021, and focus group discussions with preschool practitioners. The texts are analysed using critical discourse analysis (Fairclough 1992/2008) to reveal how perceptions of children’s sexual play have changed over time. The focus group discussions are analysed using both critical discourse analysis and an age-critical and didactic analysis. These analyses provide insight into how practitioners negotiate their professional role within sexuality education discourses and how norms surrounding children and sexuality shape the conditions for both children’s and practitioners’ agency.

The results demonstrate that sexuality education discourses in preschool have changed over time; from an encouragement of children’s sexuality and sexual play to increasing restrictions. Based on the focus group discussions, two different perspectives on the child as a subject of rights emerge. With the practitioners’ support through the curriculum, the child is constituted as a sexual subject in two ways: with the right to sexuality as identity and the right to protection from sexuality as action. Since both practitioners’ and children’s agency is constituted in a reciprocal and relational process, the practitioner is also constituted in two distinct ways. Firstly, as part of a professional “we” alongside the curriculum and management, where the practitioner acts as the child’s advocate vis-à-vis parents whose views on children’s right to sexuality as identity differ from those of the preschool. Secondly, as a rule-follower in relation to sexuality as action, where the practitioner emerges as a monitor of children.

The thesis argues that sexuality education should be informed by professional considerations rooted in scientific knowledge and proven experience. Without education and discussion on children and sexuality, preschools risk becoming platforms for political agendas and unreflected norms. Education and reflection would strengthen practitioners’ professional agency and enhance children’s recognition as sexual subjects in diverse ways. The thesis advocates for a professional discourse on sexuality, sexuality education, and preschool-aged children, both within teacher education and in preschools. These discussions should integrate multiple perspectives, ensuring that children’s right to protection from sexual abuse and their right to sexual subjectivity are both addressed.

This paper provides a discourse analysis of 12 Swedish sexuality education texts intended for preschool practitioners and published between 1969 and 2021. Using Fairclough’s framework, we identify three discourses about children’s sexual play in relation to children’s sexual agency in the texts: child sexuality as encouraged and entangled with adult sexuality; child sexuality as conditioned by what is perceived as normal or abnormal in children; and child sexuality as repressed. These three discourses mainly appear chronologically, but also overlap and connect with one another. When analysis begins from children’s position and a theoretical understanding of children’s and adults’ agency as interdependent, it becomes possible to see how the child is construed as agentic, and how the adult role changes from encouraging sexual play to regulating and monitoring behaviour so that it does not occur. Over time, discourse on young children’s sexual play has changed our understanding of both adults and children. Adults are increasingly construed as less knowledgeable in relation to young children’s sexuality, and young children have become understood as more dangerous and in need of having their sexuality constrained and civilised.

This article describes how (sexual) consent is constructed as an objective for teaching in Swedish preschool. An age-critical analysis of focus-group discussions with preschool practitioners shows how a didactic of consent is constructed and characterised: (1) The child should be trained to feel non-ambivalence. (2) Prohibitions are created against acts not considered age-appropriate. (3) Age-appropriate prior knowledge is required for a child's consent to be considered valid. Finally, alternative didactics of consent is discussed, in which ambivalence and unpredictability are highlighted as important elements.

I artikeln analyseras svenska bilderböcker som gör anspråk på att förebygga sexuella övergrepp. Syftet med studien är att analysera böckernas barnsyn och syn på barns aktörskap. Analysen visar att böckerna beskriver övergrepp i vaga uttryck. Ett huvudbudskap är att principen om samtycke ska gälla för barn, men utan att kopplas till sex. Samtycke uppnås genom att känna efter och agera utifrån egna och andras kroppsliga integritetsgränser. Barn positioneras som utsatta gentemot vuxna, samtidigt som de ska förstå att de kan agera nästan jämlikt. Vissa budskap riktar sig direkt till eller om vuxna; att de måste lyssna på barn. Analysen visar att böckerna har ett fokus som inte framkommit i studier av internationell utgivning. De svenska exemplen kan ses som en bred socialisation för att förebygga sexuella övergrepp mot barn, men också mot vuxna.