Robert Lecusay
About me
I am an associate professor of education, and senior lecturer in child and youth studies with a focus on preschool education. I am also a project researcher at Malmö university (see research projects below) and affiliated researcher with the University Helsinki’s Cultural-Historical approaches to Children’s Learning and Development group.
Prior to moving to Sweden I was a doctoral student (Interdisciplinary PhD Program in Communication & Cognitive Science) and lecturer at the University of California, San Diego’s Department of Communication and Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition. It was at LCHC that I began my partnership, sustained to this day, with the research collective the Playworlds of Creative Research. I remain an affiliate researcher at LCHC, participating in the Regenerating CHAT project and its utopian offshoots.
Teaching
I teach in the undergraduate preschool teacher education program as well as in the master’s program in preschool didactics. In addition to supervising independent research projects at the undergraduate and graduate levels, I teach courses in play, early childhood education policy (with a focus on international perspectives), and research methods.
Research
Research and research projects
My current research centers on the study of play, teaching, and education for sustainability in Swedish preschool, with particular focus on how preschool pedagogues understand and negotiate tensions stemming from the combination of these activities in preschool. These interests are rooted in a more general concern with exploring the relationship between formal and informal learning and education.
Ongoing and completed research projects.
Educational Common Spaces: Passing through enclosures and reversing inequalities (2021-2024). Forskningsprojekt - Horizon 2020 European Union Research and Innovation Grant (Ioannis Pechtelidis- huvudforskare; Liselott Mariett Olsson – svensk lag).
Transforming Early Childhood Education and Care in the Baltic and Eastern European Region: Revitalizing pedagogical perspectives from Serbian, Finnish and Swedish Scholarship and Practice in the Field (2022-2023) Forskarnätverk - Östersjöstiftelsen
Teaching, Play and Education for Sustainability in the era of Schoolification in Swedish Preschool: Case studies of the integration of the Playworld pedagogy in Reggio-inspired preschools (2021-2022). Forskningsprojekt - Södertörns Högskola – Lärarutbildning Forskningsbidrag.
Early Childhood Education for Sustainable Development in the Era of “Teaching” in Swedish Preschool. Examining Children’s Pretend and Exploratory Play in a Preschool Forest Garden Intervention (2017-2019). Forskningsprojekt - Learning Practices in and out of School Research Environment Seed Grant.
Mångfunktionella utomhusmiljöer som främjar hälsa och hållbarhet: en studie av samverkansprocesser för stärkta ekosystemtjänster i staden. (2017 – 2022). Forskningsprojekt - Forskningsrådet Formas (Tobias Samuelsson – huvudforskare)
Documenting and Assessing Learning in Informal and Media-Rich Environment: State of the art review (2011 – 2015). Forskningsprojekt - John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Research projects
Publications
For a complete list of publications visit my Google Scholar, Researchgate or Web of Science pages (SU's research publication database only displays my research from 2023 or later).