School-age Educare Research Articles

Musical Play and Playworlds Create Meaning in Swedish School-Age Educare Centres: A Matter of Engagement, Empathy, Exploration and Embodiment

One of the tasks of Swedish school-age educare centres is to offer children the possibility of different aesthetic forms of expression, such as music and drama. Based on theories of play, music and improvisation, musical play is introduced in which the process itself and the desire to participate are in focus, with the intention of investigating children’s and teachers’ joint meaning-making during the sound exploration and creation of playworlds. From a staged action-focused method, joint play with different voice sounds, both in song and speech, is introduced along with sounds and rhythms from everyday things, such as plastic bags and chopsticks. During the musical play, a fictional character is introduced to create possible openings for voluntary participation and engagement. The results are presented in four scenes and focus on engagement, empathy, exploration, and embodiment. In the results, the participants’ meaning-making is described as action during the musical play and the creation of the playworld. This study is expected to generate a basis for the discussion on joint musical play and play pedagogy as a form of extended education pedagogy capable of creating an experience of emancipation and participation in encounters between children and teachers.

Professional Dilemmatic Spaces in Swedish School-Age Educare

Global interest in the field of extended education has increased over the past two decades. Extended education in the context of Swedish school-age educare has a unique position in the school system due to its voluntariness and governance as well as the free time and leisure activities it offers pupils and the lack of set learning outcomes. These features create dilemmas for teachers; thus, this study aims to generate knowledge about the complex and challenging dilemmas of school-age educare teachers in their professional work. The results are derived from a thematic analysis of two sets of data: oral and written reflections from 22 school-age educare teachers. The three themes of the teachers’ dilemmas identified concern compulsory school vs. SAEC, offering pupils attractive teaching methods and content, and differing experiences and perspectives among the staff. The dilemmatic spaces that are recognised actualise positions and negotiations in everyday practices in relation to the teachers’ professional identities. The findings are expected to be useful as a constructive starting point for policymakers, teacher trainers, and school-age educare teachers to understand this specific educational context and the need for professional development. This study contributes to a further understanding of the multifaceted professional identities of school-age educare teachers.

Extended education and well-being of children: A case study of Iceland

This article explores the emergent trend of global educational policy which focuses on educational values such as well-being and holistic skills. It makes connections between the emergent trend of “education-as-flourishing” and current developments of extended education, using a specific case for illustration, i.e. school-age educare in Iceland. The author argues that there is an internal tension in the current educational global policy which emphasizes holistic skills and well-being in education but eventually produces a policy framework that overlooks the educational pathways of learners through extended education spaces. The case study shows that the manifold learning outcomes of extended education are largely overlooked in policy and practice. There are external and internal challenges at play that feed this tension, specifically a lack of agency of stakeholders and a supportive social structure. A new Act on Well-being of Children in Iceland encourages municipalities and professionals to align resources from diverse sectors, such as education, health, and social services. This study indicates a primary need for policy makers to work strategically with educators from all sectors to develop innovate educational practices within and outside of school to support the education and well-being of children and youth.

An Attractive School-Age Educare—Free Choices as Expanded or Limited Agency

The present study aimed to investigate and problematize an attractive school-age educare (SAEC) from the children’s perspectives. Which different aspects of quality appear in the children’s narratives about the SAEC activities? This was achieved by listening to children’s narratives and their voices. Forty-three children aged 6 to 10 participated in group conversations with the staff in their SAEC center. The study is theoretically based on a childhood sociological lens where children are recognized as active participants and agents for change and therefore important to listen to. The results show that an attractive School-Age Educare requires committed staff who inspire new discoveries, its own identity-specific premises with appropriate materials, the provision of planned and guided activities, the offering of unexpected and non-routine activities, and space for children’s agency to influence and to choose and to direct one’s own time. It is shown that free choices can both expand and limit children’s agency. In addition, the study illustrates how conversations with children can form a basic method for both developing quality and making the contextual factors for children’s agency visible.

“It shouldn’t be something you have to create on your own.” Personal practical knowledge construction and professional learning for teachers in Swedish school-age educare.

Teachers who work in school-age educare (SAEC) in Sweden possess a variety of educational qualifications. They hold a dual role working as teachers both within the compulsory program and school-age educare. This dual competence requirement means that their professional needs are unique and often different from that of their colleagues who only work in the compulsory school system (Berglund, Lager, Lundkvist and Gustavsson Nyckel, 2019). They reside in a complex context when it comes to opportunities for constructing their personal professional knowledge. Considering that already in 2021, the government announced the creation of a national professional learning program (Regeringen 2021), it is essential to understand what type of professional learning is deemed needed by the SAEC teachers themselves. Through narrative interviews with SAEC teachers, this study aims to map an understanding of how the teachers construct their personal professional knowledge as SAEC teachers. The main research question in this study is: How do SAEC teachers describe the role of professional learning as part of creating and developing their personal professional knowledge? The findings indicate a need for a systematic approach to recognize the qualification of experienced teachers and create a framework for professional learning opportunities for all teachers in SAEC.

‘I did not know that the pupils loved dancing … until the projector came’: constructions of dance as learning activity in school-age educare

ABSTRACT Interest in school-age educare has been growing internationally. School-age educare in Sweden emphasises learning and participation in aesthetic and creative learning activities. This study aims to critically examine how dance as a learning activity is constructed by educators in Swedish school-age educare. Discourse analysis is used to shed light on discursive constructions made by school-age educators when they reason about dance and learning in their educational practices. The empirical material consists of six focus-group interviews with 18 school-age educators. Three discourses are identified: (1) dance as a joy-filled activity, (2) digital tools as prerequisites for dancing, and (3) pre-choreographed dances as a preference. The results show that there is a lack of aesthetic and creative aspects in dance in school-age educare. School-age educators include dance because it is fun and is carried out by imitating movements without a focus on learning. The educators who appreciate dance lack the know-how to develop pupils’ dance skills beyond what they already know. There are holistic ambitions in school-age educare to let care, play, and learning intersect, but creative dance still has an untapped potential to engage pupils in cultural activities and to contribute to gender repositioning.

”Jag ville testa på att plugga på universitetet… och så ville jag få jobba med barn”

During the past two decades, teacher education has come to comprise the largest student enrollment in higher education programs in the Swedish context. This study examines 11 students enrolled in a teacher program specializing in school-age educare (grundlärare i fritidshem). School-age educare students exhibit a notable gender balance and many come from low-level educational and/or migrant backgrounds, leading to an exploration into the (re)production of class and gender dynamics. Through a thematic analysis of interviews, this article delves into how these students articulate their educational choices in relation to migrant background, gender, and class, and envision their future profession. The study highlights the dual motivation driving their specific educational decision: a desire for higher education and the need to enhance employability. Within this context, school-age educare emerges as a distinct and special kind of teacher endeavor. Gender, as perceived by the students, could both be framed as an asset and as a possible obstacle in discussions about their future profession. Male teachers could be both viewed as important role models yet also as ambivalent figures. This study offers insights into the interplay of class, gender, migrant background and educational aspirations, contributing to a more nuanced understanding of contemporary teacher education in Sweden.

Networked Educational Design for Novice Principals’ Professional Development

This paper focuses on professional development for school principals, drawing on literature on the education of leaders and school leaders' development. The Swedish National Principal Training Programme (NPTP) is a state-regulated executive education for professional principals in preschools, schools, and school-age Educare centres. It has been mandatory for all newly appointed principals in Sweden since 2010. The NPTP is a mandatory in-service programme and consists of three courses: school law and governance, governing with objectives and results, and school leadership. The programme runs over three years, parallel to working full-time as a principal. The participants are expected to spend 20% of their working time on their studies. The NPTP uses a networked educational design, which is a valuable research topic from a networked professional learning perspective. This pilot study aims to explore the role of networked educational design for novice principals' professional development and strengthened professional confidence and identity. The research question that frames the study is: In what ways do novice principals' experiences of professional development contribute to the development of their professional confidence and identity with a networked educational design? The study employed a qualitative case-study design with a purposive sampling method to include novice principals undertaking Sweden's national school training programme. Data were collected during 2018-2022 from post-programme evaluations, including individual digital questionnaires with close-ended and open-ended responses and small group oral evaluations documented in a log book. The participants were novice principals studying in the NPTP at one university in Sweden. In all, 321 school leaders from 10 cohort groups in the programme consisting of principals and deputy principals from preschool, primary, secondary, and adult education participated voluntarily. The programme evaluations were carried out during the participants' last residential stay in the programme. Results indicate the importance of residential stays and networking opportunities in the educational journey of principals. These opportunities help connect with peers, establish contacts, and acquire valuable strategies. Completing the training increased principals' professional confidence, particularly in their roles as school leaders. The study shows that the networked educational design supports the development of a professional network among principals, which enhances their professional identity and confidence. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of this networked educational design, which helps shape principals' professional identity and confidence. The findings emphasise the value of networked professional learning.

Teacher Quality Through the Lens of Hiring Routines: Dualistic Preferences, Oxymoronic Conditions and Pragmatic Solutions

ABSTRACT Hiring is an essential managerial task in acquiring qualitative teachers for qualitative outcomes in schools. The process is shaped by a range of different factors – from individual preferences of teacher quality in principals, to contextual and recourse-based factors in wider structural arrangements. Through the concepts of organizational routines and sensemaking, this article explores the interrelated dynamics of these factors in teacher hiring through a case study within the Swedish School-Age Educare. The findings illustrate how hiring routines are constructed through an interplay between dualistic perceptions of quality preferences, constraining or enabling contextual conditions and routine constructions.

‘I want to go home’: a comparative study of unsafe and safe spaces in two Swedish school-age educare institutions

ABSTRACT In Sweden, many children between the ages of 6 and 9 years attend Swedish school-age educare (SAEC) institutions before and after school, when their parents work or study. This study aimed to explore and compare safe and unsafe spaces in children’s everyday lives at SAEC institutions. Ethnographic fieldwork, including observations and interviews with the staff and children, was conducted at two different SAECs. Using space, agency, and violence, this study explores how the staff relates to safe and unsafe spaces in children’s everyday lives. Findings revealed differences in how everyday life plays out in the two SAECs, where unsafe spaces, with a risk of violence, more frequently exist in one SAEC than the other. The manner in which staff members perceived safe and unsafe spaces also impacted how children’s agency emerged in different spaces. The study findings have important implications for politicians and decision-makers.

Children’s experiences: The institutional grip of evaluation in Swedish school-age educare

Swedish school-age educare has, in the last 25 years, undergone extensive reforms with revised goals for work in practice and new working conditions. The reforms and changing conditions seem to have challenged practice in terms of quality. Since 2010, instead of programme evaluation for generating knowledge about the expected benefits for children of attending school-age educare, quality and evaluation have been regulated in the Education Act 2010:800(2010) as decentralised, continuous, ongoing systematic quality work led by school leaders and teachers themselves. The aim of this study was to examine the norms and the social order forming evaluation in school-age educare practice, including how staff think institutionally about evaluation, how evaluation is classified and categorised and identifying institutional shadows. The article is built on interviews with 53 staff members in twelve different centres. The interviews were analysed using Mary Douglas’ (1986) theory about how institutions think. The analysis contains a careful reading of interviews through a theoretically informed institutional lens and has resulted in different categories of evaluation in SAEC, as well as the identification of an institutional shadow. Children’s experiences is discussed as the institutional grip and shadowing goals and results in evaluation. Finally, it argues for institutional change.

“(Maybe) I am going to School-Age Educare because now I have a Residence Permit”: Children’s Non-Access to School-Age Educare in a Swedish Asylum Context

“(Maybe) I am going to School-Age Educare because now I have a Residence Permit”: Children’s Non-Access to School-Age Educare in a Swedish Asylum Context

Doing and Resisting Pupilness in Swedish School-Age Educare

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A practice-based perspective of discursive change in collegial conversations. Explicit and implicit communication at work.

This paper examines the relationship between explicit and implicit aspects of communication at work and especially how discursive change is enabled in that relationship. The studied context is collegial conversations in Swedish School-age Educare settings. The purpose is to elaborate on practice-based perspectives on reproducing and changing discourse in communication at work, contributing to productive teacher discourse. This paper proposes two aspects contributing to reproduction of discourse: shallow consensus and intersubjectivity; and two aspects enabling discursive change in collegial conversations at work: multivoicing and revisiting events. Identified aspects of (re)production in collegial conversation shows positioning and constructions of group belonging in work teams are important to make conversations productive. This paper contributes to elaboration on the literature of collegial discourse and communication and literature on team-based work.

“Sadly, we just let it go, it is so normalized”: Staff descriptions of violence among children within organized leisure

The aim of this study was to investigate how staff describe violence among children within organized leisure in Sweden, named school-age EduCare. The study is based on ten semi-structured interviews with staff, and analyzed with theoretical concepts of Lefebvre’s space theory, and Galtung’s theory of violence. The results reveal three types of violence—quarrel for fun, violations, and physical violence—and three ways of reacting and managing it—stress and resignation, material adaption, and adaption through guarding. In conclusion, this study shows an everyday life filled with violent spaces, but limited resources for staff to cope with violence and create safe spaces for children and staff. The study pinpoints the complexity in everyday life where violence in different ways occurs between children, and staff are unable to manage this in an appropriate way. Instead, staff adjust to time and place, where spaces of violence between children are normalized.

Education “through” sustainable development in Swedish school-age educare – exploring how SAEC is responding to ESD in daily practices

ABSTRACT This article aims to explore how extended education in Sweden, School-age educare (SAEC), is responding to education for sustainable development (ESD), since these two educational practices have not that often been combined nor related in research. The exploratory findings are based on a small-scale case study in one municipality; including three in-depth examples from practice. The results reveal different kind of activities in the centres visited, as well as different approaches to education for sustainable development within SAEC. The cases show activities related to traditional outdoor environmental education, to social justice and global issues, and also as meaning making through play-based activities. The results were further analysed in relation to core concepts within extended education as well as ESD, exploring the “missing link”, but also new possibilities of ESD when part of an extended educational practice. The main conclusion of the analyses is that SAEC activities related to ESD offers education through sustainable development by active participation in various forms and contexts, as also currently suggested in policy and by scholars. By explicitly focusing ESD in the educational context of Swedish school-age educare, a missing link in this area of research was pinpointed paving the way for further research, and increased awareness in practice.

School-age-educare teachers in an ambivalent school practice - empirical examples in the wake of policy changes in Sweden

ABSTRACT In recent decades, there have been policy changes affecting School-Age Educare (SAE) teachers in Sweden. Today, SAE teachers must be aware of the historical underpinnings, educational policy aims, and a ‘new’ undergraduate teacher education program. The aim of the present article is to explore in what way SAE teachers, graduated from the basic teacher program in 2020, describe their professional roles and experiences, during their first year in school practice. In order to analyze how SAE teachers experience structural tensions in school practice, Merton’s [(1976). Sociological ambivalence and other essays. The Free Press] concept of sociological ambivalence will be employed. The findings show examples of the ambivalent positions for SAE teachers within the school organization as well as outside schools. Consequently, the ambivalent positions for SAE teachers, along with the reform aim to transform the ‘traditional’ SAE teacher into ideas focusing on compulsory school teaching need attention when it comes to recruiting SAE teachers for future practice.

Pupils’ development: Policy enactment in Swedish school-age educare

ABSTRACT The historical roots of what is now a modern Swedish school-age educare (SAEC) were formed from a social pedagogical starting point in which children’s social development, freedom and well-being were prioritized. SAEC has now become more focused on an educational pedagogical assignment and has been incorporated into the Swedish curriculum. SAECs could therefore be seen as institutions under reconstruction, in that their current work is formed in what can be regarded as a transition period. This transition could imply new points of departure concerning work practices and forms of documentation, both of that could challenge older traditions. Using policy enactment theory as a methodology, this case study discusses the work practices and forms of documentation that are in use now, with a specific focus on the latter. The main purpose of the article is to explore and develop SAEC staff’s points of departure for developing their documentation and assessments and how the new curriculum assignment is enacted in the context of SAEC’s pedagogical practices. The study’s findings show that the enactment process could be seen as an initiative based on local needs for clarity. The developed documentation and assessment practices are described as a cultural shift away from former practices.

Broadening the foundation for the study of childhood connectedness to nature

The spatial aspect of access to nature experience is considered a key factor for studying school-age educare and connectedness to nature. While the standard approach for questions of connectedness to nature is to study at the individual level using methods such as observations, psychometric scaling, and interviews, less common are spatial methods applied to structural or collective aspects of these questions; connectedness to nature study rarely considers the human relationship with nature across sociocultural/structural/institutional levels. Spatial analysis is presented as a step toward a broader consideration of connectedness to nature; careful consideration of connectedness to nature/disconnection must explore the forces beyond the individual shaping access and opportunity. Specifically, the study considers access through proximity to nature from school-age educare sites in the Swedish city of Malmö. Using spatial methodology, proximity to nature was measured at 67 school-aged educare sites. The results provide a complex picture of a range from high to low-quality access to nature for children at the sites. The results help highlight the importance of access via proximity while also opening the door to a mix of other sociocultural/structural/institutional factors to be considered in support of children’s access to nature experience.

Is There an “I” in “We?” – Children as Individuals or Group Subjects in School-Age Educare Staff’s Collegial Conversations

The aim of this study is to gain knowledge of how School-Age EduCare (SAEC) staff in and through collegial conversations construe a child/children. Collegial conversations with two SAEC staff teams were analyzed using the theoretical concepts from the fields of discourse analysis and systemic functional grammar. The results show that children were repeatedly construed as a group subject by the staff and more rarely as individual subjects. The SAEC staff construed the children as group subjects in four different ways: as general groups, as pre-determined groups, as quantity-related groups, and as behavior-related groups. The children who were construed as individual subjects were mainly the ones who diverged from the group, often in negative ways.