School-age Educare Research Articles

Fritidshemspersonals tal om barns fysiska aktivitet – samhällelig påverkan och möjliga implikationer

The aim of this paper is to shed light on how teachers’ talk about children’s physical activity in school-age educare can be seen as part of comprehensive social discourses concerning education and physical activity. Focus-group interviews with a discourse-analytic approach have been carried out with staff from two municipal school-age educare in Sweden. The transcriptions was analyzed with inspiration from critical discourse analyze which is the theoretical standpoint. In the result the discourses of risk, shortage, activity, complement and joy of movement are the most prominent. In analysis these discourses are seen as inter-discursively influenced by the public health discourse wherein concepts as activity rate, discipline, joy of movement and organization are central. These discourses, concepts and possible implications for school-age educare are discussed. It is also argued that a social pedagogical discourse of care with focus on children’s relation making and conflict management seems to be manifest within Swedish school-age educare.

‘This place does not feel safe’: safe and unsafe spaces in Swedish school-age educare

ABSTRACT This study explores the occurrence of violence in children’s everyday lives in different places in school and school-age educare. School-age educare is a Swedish institution providing care before and after school. The study is based on interviews, observations, and walk-and-talk sessions with 11 children in a school-age educare institution. A thematic analysis informed by the theoretical concepts of Doreen Massey (space and place) and Johan Galtung (direct, structural, and cultural violence) was conducted. Three themes were developed: spaces of tense waiting; pop-up yard spaces; and ignored spaces in the woods. The results show that physical and psychological violence arises in the schoolyard, gym, and canteen. The staff did not always pay attention to the violence that occurred, and the children found ways to navigate and handle violence by avoiding certain places. They also used relationships with children and adults for their support. This study examines the everyday life in which direct and cultural violence occur.

Digital Learning Activities at School-age Educare when Policy Reforms Calls for Educational Change

This study examines teachers’ accounts of what is happening in practices of the School-age Educare centre (SAEC) when faced with pressure from policy reforms to adopt digital technology and promote digital competence as both a requirement and a right for all children. The aim is to explain anticipated tensions that may produce the (im)possible digital practices of SAECs. The study is conducted with teachers from three SAECs in Sweden. Reflection conversations and interviews were used to produce data that was analysed using a constructivist grounded theory approach. The study contributes to understandings of teachers’ main concerns when SAECs are requested to adopt technology and align with reforms. It explains how tensions emerge, impact SAEC teachers’ actions towards revised curricula and affect the distribution of digital learning activities. Attention is asked to ensure that the rights of also young pupils are upheld in the digital world of today and tomorrow.

”Titta blåsippor!”

School-age educare (fritidshem) was included in the Swedish education act in 2010 and received its own section in the national curriculum in 2016. From that point on, teaching in school-age educare was also linked to predefined core contents and abilities that the pupils are supposed to develop. At the same time, the curriculum states that teaching in school-age educare is to be based on “the pupils’ needs, interests and experiences”. In the article, this duality is discussed in relation to empirical findings from school-age educare teachers. The teachers describe situations when they pay attention to pupils’ doing and saying, and how this is transformed into teaching purposes. The findings are related to the concept of “phronesis”, while the teachers’ attention gets a significant meaning through that concept. Moreover, the findings indicate that “episteme knowledge” also needs to be emphasized in this form of student-centered education, as something necessary for school-age educare teachers to know.

Leading and supporting: principals reflect on their task as pedagogical leaders of Swedish school-age educare

ABSTRACT Principals in Sweden face leadership challenges as pedagogical leaders of School-age educare Centers (SAECs). This study examines how principals identify both professional development needs as well as challenges they face in supporting the SAEC teachers. The empirical data is based on reflections from 29 principals and vice-principals from four different municipalities in Sweden, which were analyzed using a framework for successful school leadership (Leithwood, K., A. Harris, and D. Hopkins. 2020. “Seven strong claims about successful school leadership revisited.” School Leadership & Management 40 (1): 5–22) and thematic analysis. Within the key areas for development three main themes were found: personal professional understanding of SAEC, building collaborative cultures within and between SAEC departments, and increasing student participation and engagement. The participants further identified specific challenges in supporting the SAEC teachers: building a culture of collaboration between SAEC and the compulsory school, structuring planning and collaboration, and improving assessment practices in SAEC.The results highlight how by not prioritizing the work in SAECs has impacted their ability to lead the program; they emphasize their need to improve and develop the SAECs and their desire to change their leadership priorities.

Promoting quality of extended education at primary schools in Sweden and Germany: A comparison of guidelines and children’s perspectives

Internationally, provisions of extended education programs and related research are increasing. Over the past decade, many governments have established quality standards according to their specific goals. The aim of this comparative case study of School-Age Educare Centers in Sweden and all-day schools in Germany is to identify steps to ensure high quality of extended education in line with requirements for future education. We analyze the perspectives of policymakers, reflected in guidelines and quality standards and explore data from qualitative studies to determine how children define quality and relate it to their well-being and agency. Despite differences in quality standards in Sweden and Germany, children in both contexts describe similar experiences, shortcomings, and needs.

The concept of pupils´ interests in the context of school-age educare in Sweden

ABSTRACT The governing document of the Swedish SAEC has shifted to become more focused on teaching and learning. The updated curriculum (SNAE, 2011) added new requirements of the educational programme through stating that activities should be ‘based on the pupils’ needs, interests and initiative’ (SNAE, 2011, p. 23). The aim of this study is to explore how SAEC can reach these goals and what kind of inventory the staff in SAEC use to plan the activity. The study takes its theoretical point of departure from childhood studies (James, Jenks, & Prout, 2015). The methodology was based on action research and conducted together with eight different teams. The results show that there are different ways to inventory pupils’ interests. Inventories are shaped differently when staff see pupils as co-actors planning the educational programme together, or viewing pupils as objects and put in a subordinate position.

To Teach Undercover: A Liberal Art of Rule

School-age educare centres in Sweden have previously not engaged in teaching guided by objectives, but since 2016 there has been a legal requirement to do so as part of an assignment to complement the knowledge requirements in school. Through focus group discussions with children and school-age educare teachers this study explores how it is possible to teach in a voluntary educational programme such as school-age educare. The analysis problematises the voluntary nature of school-age educare in relation to the requirement to teach by using the concept liberal arts of rule while asking what can be governed and how one can govern in these centres. The results show that the children willingly participate in school-age educare since they experience themselves to be free and with great opportunities to play when in the centres. At the same time, the teachers fulfil the complementary assignment by disguising learning while teaching undercover.

Activities and Values in School-Age Educare Mathematics

Based on an empirical study of policy enactment and mathematical enculturation in Swedish school-age educare, a conceptualization of mathematics as the assemblage of activities and values is proposed. Observations were analysed using policy enactment theory and the lens of mathematical activities. The result shows that making creations, describing relationships and addressing problems are mathematical activities evident in the practices of school-age educare. Values of plausibility, critical stance and connectedness are evident. This alternative conceptualization of mathematics offers possibilities for respecting a balance between education and care in practice. The result opens for alternative ways of thinking about mathematics as a complementing and compensating area that resists the tendency towards schoolification in educare.

Teachers Enacting Complementation and Compensation in a Practice under Strain – Policy and Practice in Swedish School-Age EduCare

The aim of this study is to explore the way teachers enact policy regarding the tasks of complementation and compensation in Swedish School-Age Educare. As a result of numerous policy changes, school-age educare as an institution has undergone significant and substantial changes in terms of its social mandate, educational objectives, and content. In this paper, we investigate how these policy changes have transformed the everyday practice for staff working in these settings. We base our analysis on policy enactment theory, focusing on the way policy is transformed into practice. The research material consists of group interviews with 53 staff members interviewed in twelve focus groups, representing twelve different settings. The results highlight that enacting policy in Swedish school-age educare involves multiple interpretations of these concepts, being constrained by materiality in several ways, representing a mix of discourses in both policy and practice regarding the tasks of complementation and compensation.

Approaching change through pragmatic routines: a case study of a municipal response to a teacher certification reform in the Swedish School-age Educare

ABSTRACT During the last decade, the Swedish School-age Educare has been the object of multiple government-enforced reform initiatives in order to clarify its purpose and increase educational quality and equivalence. In 2019, a teacher certification reform was imposed on the educational programme, concretizing responsibilities between categories of staff and regulating hiring procedures in order to raise the level of formally qualified personnel. At the same time, Sweden was (and still is) battling a severe teacher shortage, with teachers certified towards the School-age Educare being one of the scarcer categories to acquire. Through a single-case study, this article explores a local municipal response to this policy dilemma by focusing on the ways in which the reform demands are translated and made sense of in terms of organizational routines. The findings show that actors make sense of demands based on prior knowledge and beliefs connected to identity and qualitative endeavours of the educational programme, which in turn shape ‘scripts’ to routine performance. However, when these scripts collide with performative constraints connected to organizational capacities, pragmatic routines are designed in order to partly sustain apprehensions from the initial reform translation, which in turn shapes further routinized action.

Evaluating the practice in Swedish school-age educare: Issues and contradictions

This article reports how teachers in Swedish school-age educare evaluate (SAEC) their practice. The study was conducted within a research- and development programme and is based on 47 teachers’ written reflections about performing evaluations. The reflections have been analysed using various neo-institutional logics. The results indicate that the teachers’ focus, regarding both the children and the practice, is directed differently when they are guided by different logics. When guided by the market logic, teachers focus on customer preferences and customer satisfaction. Guided by the professional logic, teachers focus the collective as well as the activities and the organisation around them. Guided by the bureaucratic and state logics, the teachers focus on the formal teaching, the individual child, and the school-age educare goal fulfilment. The results also show issues and contradictions concerning how to evaluate, what to evaluate, and when to evaluate. One possible claim is that the learning processes at the school-age educare are broad and complex, and thus difficult to “mould” to fit into evaluation schemes.

Fritidshemmet - en förbisedd potential i arbetet med lärande för hållbar utveckling?

School-Age Educare is an integrated part of the Swedish compulsory school organization, focusing social relations, children's interests and play. Although included in the national school curriculum, there is a lack of knowledge of if and how School-Age Educare currently work with the mandatory task of education for sustainable development (ESD). This article thus seeks to examine the educational potentials, but also possible need for support, of School-Age Educare in relation to ESD. Through analyzing 453 teachers responses to a questionnaire with open and closed questions, we reveal that most teachers find ESD important, but also want to learn more about it. There is potential in the educational task, and pedagogical approach, supporting ESD as a transactional and pragmatic approach. The constrains contributing to ESD lies in the somewhat absent awareness among the teachers themselves, but also in the limited resources and time available of carrying out sustainability education at the centers.

In search of didactics in school-age educare centres: To conceptualise what exists, but has not yet been found

The purpose of this paper is to focus on approaches that could build a didactic framework for School-Age Educare Centres (SAECs). As a theoretical basis and a research field, didactics exists within many disciplines (e.g., education in natural sciences and preschool). This is not the case within the SAEC. While a lot of research has been devoted to subject didactics, there is a lack of research on didactics in SAECs, and the marginal research that exists shows a fragmented picture of what it could consist of. However, researchers in the field agree that didactics in SAECs is something else than subject didactics and differs from general didactics. Our aim in this paper is to suggest and discuss how a didactic framework in SAECs could be conceptualized with an intention in the near future to find the specific didactics that distinguishes the work in SAECs. The proposed design involves theory building/testing with a bottom-up perspective and various data collection methods. Because building a didactic theory for SAECs is the intention, the research process will take informed grounded theory (GT) as its methodological starting point. The empirical material will be related to the two dominant didactic frameworks: the German and the Anglo-Saxon. This framework will also be critically reviewed in relation to the activities in SAECs. The results will contribute important knowledge to the development of a relevant and useful didactic theory for SAECs. The practical implications are directly relevant to every stakeholder affected by the SAECs’ activities: policy actors, staff, students, and researchers. In the long term, we will be able to find a legitimate platform for didactics in SAECs, which will have concrete importance for professionals and researchers in particular. The purpose of this paper is to focus on approaches that could build a didactic framework for School-Age Educare Centres (SAECs). As a theoretical basis and a research field, didactics exists within many disciplines (e.g., education in natural sciences and preschool). This is not the case within the SAEC. While a lot of research has been devoted to subject didactics, there is a lack of research on didactics in SAECs, and the marginal research that exists shows a fragmented picture of what it could consist of. However, researchers in the field agree that didactics in SAECs is something else than subject didactics and differs from general didactics. Our aim in this paper is to suggest and discuss how a didactic framework in SAECs could be conceptualized with an intention in the near future to find the specific didactics that distinguishes the work in SAECs. The proposed design involves theory building/testing with a bottom-up perspective and various data collection methods. Because building a didactic theory for SAECs is the intention, the research process will take informed grounded theory (GT) as its methodological starting point. The empirical material will be related to the two dominant didactic frameworks: the German and the Anglo-Saxon. This framework will also be critically reviewed in relation to the activities in SAECs. The results will contribute important knowledge to the development of a relevant and useful didactic theory for SAECs. The practical implications are directly relevant to every stakeholder affected by the SAECs’ activities: policy actors, staff, students, and researchers. In the long term, we will be able to find a legitimate platform for didactics in SAECs, which will have concrete importance for professionals and researchers in particular.

Didactics in School-Age Educare Centres – an Unexplored Field But with Distinctive Views

Didactics in School-Age Educare Centres – an Unexplored Field But with Distinctive Views

The Principal as the Instructional Leader in School-Age Educare

ABSTRACT With the inclusion of school-age educare (SAEC) in the Swedish National curriculum in 2016, the principal’s role now includes pedagogical leadership in SAEC. This study consists of reflection responses provided by twenty principals in the project The Pedagogical task of School Age educare. Findings indicate that a minority of the participants have a good grasp of the instructional aspect of the SAEC program. As them Swedish national principal training program currently does not specifically address the SAEC program, principals are at a disadvantage when it comes to their ability to lead and develop this part of the Swedish school system.

På spaning efter fritidspedagogisk undervisning

The study aims at showing how teaching within school-age educare can be made visible through a LEGO project. Using Bernstein’s socio-linguistic theory, a re-analysis and a case-study are carried out. With a focus on how teachers teach, field notes from a previously conducted study are processed again. Results show that teaching within school-age educare is based on a visible pedagogy of both strong classification and framing, in line with a formal image of instruction. At certain times, the teaching becomes invisible, primarily from the children’s perspective, partly because of admonitions to maintain the project and partly because of the children’s sense of control whether project events are real or pretend. The play-oriented features and child focus in the project can be seen as a strategy, demonstrating opportunities of school-age educare teaching to create behavior that explores different knowledge. One conclusion highlights the teachers’ sense of intonation, an art requiring teachers to lead and participate in order to provide the conditions for learning. This teaching can complement the school.

Ett eget utrymme: Barns perspektiv på kontroll i relation till fritidshemmets gränser

I denna studie undersöks barns beskrivningar av att sluta i fritidshem med fokus på institutionell ordning och institutionella gränser mellan skola, fritidshem och hem. Studien bygger på intervjuer med 22 nio- till tioåringar som står inför att sluta i fritidshem. Intervjuerna analyseras utifrån barndomssociologiska och symbolisk interaktionistiska utgångspunkter. Resultaten visar att en huvudangelägenhet när barnen talar om sina erfarenheter av fritidshemmet är kontroll. Med kontroll avses ett gränsarbete där fritidshem förhålls mot skola och hem. Mot skolan sker en gränsuppluckring i termer av formaliserad undervisning och mot hemmet i termer av fritid. Aspekter som blir särskilt viktiga för barnen att ha kontroll över är aktiviteter och relationer. Att det uppstår gränsarbete mellan fritidshem och omgivande domäner kan bero på att fritidshemmets institutionella ordning upplevs som otydlig i detta gränsarbete. Spänningen mellan att ha kontroll och att bli kontrollerad blir viktig i detta avseende. English abstract A space of one’s own: Children’s perspectives on control and the boundaries of school-age educare This study examines boundaries between after school care often called school-age educare (SAEC), school, and home, focusing on children’s own experiences in relation to institutional order. The theoretical basis of the study is the sociology of childhood and symbolic interactionism. Interviews with 22 nine to ten-year-olds, who are about to leave SAEC, are analyzed showing that the children’s main concern is control, and that the institutional order of SAEC can be understood as a tension between being controlled and having control. Control in relation to SAEC is understood through border work where SAEC is compared with school as well as home. The border to school is blurred in terms of how the children experience formalized teaching and the border to home is blurred in terms of how the children experience leisure. Two aspects of particular interest to the children are control over activities and control over relationships.

Principals’ vision of social learning in school-age educare

ABSTRACT Work to support pupils’ social learning in Swedish school-age educare (SAEC) may be understood to depend on how the principal leads the staff and how the vision is set. Therefore, in this article the principals’ vision of social learning is investigated. Data are collected from group interviews with principals and analysed from an interactionist perspective, through Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory. The results show a vision of SAEC and compulsory school as one unit. Additionally, work on social learning is viewed as a topic to teach in SAEC. However, the general definition of a vision is not consistent among the participating principals, which gives rise to a need to clarify the construct of the vision, together with the staff.

The Educational Practice of School-Age Educare Teachers Teaching Visual Art in Swedish Primary Schools

The purpose of this article is to increase the understanding of the challenges that Swedish school-age educare teachers with a certification in visual art experience in their everyday school practice. The study focus on the educational practice of teaching visual art from a holistic perspective which also includes the teachers’ perception of their overall work situation and their professional identity. Due to dual professional roles, these teachers are not only required to meet the criteria formulated in the syllabus of the subject visual art, but also to achieve the goals for the educare centre (National Agency of Education, 2019). The method used is in-depth individual interviews with nine teachers, together with observations of visual art lectures and the physical and material environment. The results provide insights into what it means to work as a school-age educare teacher teaching visual art in primary schools, struggling with limited resources and identity conflicts. The study highlights how teachers often end up in a struggle between individual agency and social structures since they have to resist, adjust and negotiate to get acceptable work conditions.