ABSTRACT
This chapter explores children’s different experiences of the transitions from the Swedish preschool class to school focusing on normality and deviance in relation to the transition processes. Such deviating transitions are referred to as “different transitions”. The results show how different transitions are constructed by children in relation to norms and expectations of what a “normal” transition looks like. The analysis is grounded in ethnographic fieldwork (participant observations and interviews) where a group of children were followed during their transition from preschool class to first grade. The group included a number of children who, in different ways, did not follow the collective or “normal” transition. These children made different transitions because they started school early in relation to age, they had been retained a grade or been placed in preschool class, even though they were older than six. The chapter focuses on how those different transition experiences are part of the common transition from preschool class to first grade, and how they are understood and explained by children, and discusses how teachers can work with and take children’s different experiences into account to create transparent transitions.
