Between control and resistance: planning and evaluation texts in the Swedish preschool

Abstract

This article contains results from a study based on locally produced planning and evaluation texts from 10 preschool settings in a Swedish middle‐sized town. The texts were mainly from 1999 to 2005, a period during which Swedish preschools were implementing their first curriculum and were subject to several changes including decentralisation, marketisation and competition which taken together brought new demands on visibility. The overarching aim is to investigate and describe the meaning of content and formulations in the texts in relation to the teachers’ professionalism in this era of performativity. The texts were analysed as institutional narratives that underline what the preschool is and ought to be and we thereby regard the texts as governing. Analyses based on the theoretical concepts of technologies and positioning not only show how the teachers are simultaneously controlled and control themselves by the descriptions in the texts, but also how they position themselves as highly professional and present resistance to the control. One conclusion drawn from the analyses is that the profession of the teacher is changing and a new way of being professional might be to be good at positioning oneself.

Keywords:

• preschool
• teacher professionalism
• planning and evaluation texts
• performativity
• technologies
• positioning

Notes

1. According to the Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket 2001) staff density decreased from 4.4 children per full‐time position in 1990 to 5.4 children 10 years later.

2. In 2000, 66% of all children aged one to five were registered at a preschool, which is the most dominant form of childcare in Sweden. In 2006, the number had increased to 79% (Skolverket 2007a).

3. Twelve texts are from an earlier period, 1992–97.

4. Since 1998 all six‐year‐olds are placed in what are called preschool classes, located in connection to primary schools rather than previously in separate preschool buildings.