Simply Quality? State Governance of Swedish Preschools’ Work with Children in Need of Special Support

Abstract

ABSTRACT The purpose of this critical study is to generate knowledge about decisions by education authorities that serve an advisory and normative function for Swedish preschool education at the operational level, with a focus on work with children in need of special support. This has been achieved by scrutinising documents generated in conjunction with a quality audit within the framework of the Swedish Schools Inspectorate’s three-year focus on preschools from 2015 to 2017. The analysis shows that the documents can be understood as discursive expressions within and for a regime of truth, wherein the effects of power contribute to certain norms and values gaining precedence in the operationalisation of what constitutes qualitative special support. The analysis further shows that the state quality audit focuses on instrumental and measurable understandings of quality and highlights sameness rather than difference by downplaying the ethical and pedagogical aspects of the special support.