Systematic quality development work in a Swedish leisure-time centre

ABSTRACT

There is increasing activity in the area of quality issues in education in Europe. Diverse discourses of policy for quality are encountered in daily practice. This article explores systematic quality development work in a Swedish educational setting: the leisure-time centre. By following 2 teachers’ enactments of policy in planning, organising, documenting, and evaluating the quality of a leisure-time centre and children's achievement of objectives, different logics were found. Tensions in practice that visualise pluralistic intentions in policy and educational approaches were also revealed. Planning and organising as parts of systematic quality development work reveal an emerging individualistic perspective. However, when teachers carry out documentation and evaluation, they reconstruct a social pedagogical approach grounded in the tradition of the leisure-time centre with a group-oriented focus.

KEYWORDS:

• quality
• policy
• practice
• leisure-time centre
• enactment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹Leisure-time centres are for children aged 6–12 years, and they spend their time in the centre before and after school. In Sweden, 82.3% of children between 6–9 years were enrolled in leisure-time centres in 2013 (The National Agency for Education, 2013). (Leisure-time) teachers have a three-year academic education. In 1998, the leisure-time centre (together with the pre-school and pre-school class) was integrated into the Ministry of Education and Science and incorporated into the national curriculum Lpo94/98 (National Agency for Education, 1998) and Lgr11 (National Agency for Education, 2011).

²Since the revision of the Education Act (SFS 2010:800), children in leisure-time centres are called pupils, but in this article the term “children” is used instead, except in quotations where “pupil” is used.

³In the English translation of the new curriculum (Lgr11), the term “recreation” centre is used instead of the “leisure-time” centre. In this article, “leisure-time centre” will be used as it is the most common used concept.

⁴Called “teachers” from now on (instead of leisure-time teachers).

⁵ Education Act (SFS 2010:800) and Curriculum for the compulsory school, preschool class and the recreation centre 2011, Lgr11 (National Agency for Education, 2011).

⁶Boxes filled with material to inspire children's play. Examples of play-boxes are: detective-box, travel-box, office-box, circus-box, hairdresser-box, optician-box, restaurant-box, and so on.