Anna Günther-Hanssen
About me
Senior Lecturer
Section for Early Childhood Education
Anna Günther-Hanssen holds a PhD in Education (didaktik) and works as a senior lecturer. She teaches at the preschool teacher program. Her overall research interest concerns the entangled relation of learning and (gendered) becoming in preschool. The focus of her PhD thesis was on preschool children's explorations of emergent science and gendering as mutual processes. She also has an interest in transdisciplinary STEAM education in preschool (STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics), as well as documentation practices in preschool and post qualitative methodologies. Anna also holds a preschool teacher education and has been working as a preschool teacher.
Teaching
From spring 2022 I am course leader for the following courses:
- Early Childhood Education focusing Mathematics and Technology, 12 hp
- School Placement III, Programme in Early Childhood Education, 6hp
I also teach in the courses:
- Early Childhood Education focusing on Science and Sustainability, 12hp
- Degree Work, Programme in Early Childhood Education, 15hp
- School Placement II, Programme in Early Childhood Education, 6 hp
- School Placement IV, Programme in Early Childhood Education, 7,5 hp
Research
Annas PhD thesis focused on preschool children's explorations of emergent science and gendering as mutual processes. Her current research interests concern transdisciplinary STEAM education and gender in preschool (STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics), as well as documentation practices in preschool.
PhD thesis: Emergent science and gendering processes in preschool.
The aim of the thesis was to explore how scientific phenomena, together with other agents (human and nonhuman) in preschool, participate in and co-create gendering processes as well as children’s emergent scientific explorations. As a theoretical and methodological foundation, a new materialist perspective drawing on Karen Barad’s (2007) theory of agential realism and diffractive methodology were used, as well as de Freitas and Palmer’s (2016) notion concerning how scientific concepts can work as creative playmates in children’s explorations.
Sample of publications:
Areljung, S., & Günther-Hanssen, A. (2021). STEAM education: An opportunity to transcend gender and disciplinary norms in early childhood? Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, https://doi.org/10.1177/14639491211051434
Günther-Hanssen, A., Jobér, A., & Andersson, K. (2021). From swings, through physics, with pendulums, to gendering: Re-turning diffractive analyses on science and gender in preschool, Reconceptualizing Educational Research Methodology, 12(2), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.7577/rerm.4678
Günther-Hanssen, A. (2020). A swing and a child: how scientific phenomena can come to matter for preschool children’s emergent science identities. Cultural Studies of Science Education. 15(4), 885–910. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-020-09980-w
Günther-Hanssen, A., Danielsson, A. T., & Andersson, K. (2020). How does gendering matter in preschool science; Emergent science, ‘neutral’ environments and gendering processes in preschool. Gender and Education. 32(5), 608-625. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2019.1632809
Günther-Hanssen, A. (2020). Emergent science and gendering processes in preschool [Barn, naturvetenskap och könande processer i förskolan] (21 Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary), Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Uppsala. URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-415337
Günther-Hanssen, A. (2018). Begynnande naturvetenskap och könade kroppar i barns utelek. Tidskrift för genusvetenskap, 39(4), 7-30.