The purpose of the study is to examine how quality in the preschool is perceived by preschool teachers. In this study quality in the preschool is examined in relation to care and learning as well as the introduction of the term education in the curriculum for preschools (Lpfö18). To do this the study uses a qualitative approach with applied grounded theory. The data has been collected through semi structured interviews with six preschool teachers.

The scientific field of quality in preschool is complex as there are postmodern ideas that question the use of the expression altogether while other more modernistic ideas calls for a more precise definition of the term. This study aims to navigate this field through Dahlberg, Moss & Pence (2014) ideas on postmodernism in preschool, Sheridan (2007) and Sheridan & Pramling Samuelssons (2009) concepts of forms and dimensions of pedagogical quality, Berghs (2010) application criteria for quality in education and a theoretical model on how preschool teachers perceive quality developed during the study.

The study concludes that the preschool teachers express care and learning as a dichotomy and implies that this may lead to compromises through having to prioritize between the two. The respondents further imply that focus on a certain dimension of pedagogical quality may have negative consequences on other dimensions. The study finds that the respondents express that certain ideas based on application criteria concerning market, result and system quality lead to a perceived pressure on the preschool teacher to deliver more result quality which in turn can undermine the process quality of the preschool.