The starting point of our study was raised as a concern, when we realized the fact that we both consider ourselves lacking knowledge of how we as prospective pre-school teachers should manage children´s play that perceived as violent. We were also keen to learn how certain standards may influence pre-school teachers and be reproduced by them in relation to children’s play with elements of violence. The aim of our study is to examine how teachers of pre-school children reason around children´s violent play, and how their reasoning might visualize the prevailing norms of ethics and morals, gender and child perspective. The questions we ask ourselves are: 

• How do pre-school teachers reason concerning children's play with elements of violence?

• How are standards of ethics and morality, gender and child perspective in teachers' reasoning about children's games involving violence reproduced?


When analysing our material we chose a norm-critical perspective, when looking at our data through the three norms; ethics and morals, gender and child perspective. In collecting our data we used a qualitative approach and our method is qualitative interviews. The conclusion from our study is that we can identify the three norms about ethics and morals, gender and child perspective when pre-school teachers reason about children´s play with elements of violence, and that these norms are reproduced by the pre-school teachers.