Everyday practices in Swedish school-age educare centres: a reproduction of subordination and difficulty in fulfilling their mission

ABSTRACT

Research directed at institutions focusing on diverse aspects of childreńs social and cognitive development outside school is a growing field. This article discusses Swedish school-age educare centres for children between 6–12 years of age before and after school. These centres are regarded as important for young children’s learning and care, although national statistics and an increasing amount of research shows that the preconditions for fulfilling these assignments are not favourable. This case study is based on Giddens’ theory of structuration and studies staff at three educare centres using a mix of different methods, including interviews, observations and vignettes. The staff assert that their work is regarded as subordinate to that of class teachers. This is demonstrated by distant management, a fragmented working day and a lack of time for planning the work. These conditions are seen to affect the quality and the staff´s opportunities to fulfil their mission.

KEYWORDS:

• Case study
• extended education
• school-age educare
• vignette

Introduction

The growing field of extended education is paying attention to the different institutions focusing on diverse aspects of children’s social and cognitive development outside school (cf. Bae, 2018). The research includes institutions in individual countries (Haglund & Peterson, 2017; Lowe Vandell & Lao, 2016; Pálsdóttir, 2012) and comparative studies (cf. Haglund & Anderson, 2009; Plantenga & Remery, 2013).¹ This study focuses on Swedish school-age educare centres (SAECs), which are institutions directed at children between the ages of 6–12 years before and after attending school.² Most Swedish children between 6–8 years of age take part in SAEC activities (Swedish National Agency for Education (SNAE), 2018). In the past, SAECs were seen as institutions that cooperated with parents who worked or studied and therefore needed support and care for their children (The National Board of Health and Welfare, 1988). The SAEC was therefore seen as a complement to parenting and, like preschool, was considered as part of Swedish social and family policy. Due to different political regulations and desires, the SAEC and school started to co-operate during the 1980s and 1990s. The point of departure for this cooperation was partly to improve school for the youngest children and partly to cut budget costs by housing SAECs in school facilities. Prior to this SAECs had mostly been accommodated in the same buildings as preschools or in separate buildings. In 1996, governmental responsibility for SAECs was transferred from the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs to the Ministry of Education and Science, with the school becoming the primary cooperation partner. Some years later, several dissertations drew attention to the encounter between SAECs and the staff’s encounters with the school and asserted that both SAECs and their staff were regarded as subordinate in this cooperation – a cooperation that was mainly realized during school hours (cf. Calander, 1999; Hansen, 1999).³

Today, most SAECs share rooms, buildings and environments with Swedish compulsory schools. As part of the public education system, SAECs are expected to provide care, stimulate learning and offer meaningful leisure and recreation. The status of SAECs is reflected in the Education Act (2010) and in a chapter specifically related to the SAEC mission in the Swedish National Agency for Education’s (SNAE) curricula (2011 ref 2016). The activities are expected to be based on the pupils’ needs, interests and experiences, and offer learning environments that integrate education and care. Through these new steering documents, SAECs are seen as important parts of younger children’s education. By underlining the importance of learning, the mission of SAECs has also changed. Since 2011, a three-year teacher education specifically related to SAECs has been provided, leading to a Bachelor of Arts degree in Primary Education–Extended School.

However, the studies of Boström, Hörnell, and Frykland (2015) and Haglund (2018), together with reports from the Swedish Schools Inspectorate (2010, 2018) and SNAE (2000, 2018), have continuously shown that factors such as budgetary cuts and the school management’s lack of knowledge about SAECs have affected the quality of these centres. The statistics show that the number of pupils participating in SAEC activities increased much more than the increase in staff resources from 2007 to 2018 (SNAE, 2018). Furthermore, the number of staff who are qualified to work in SAECs has decreased (SNAE, 2018).

This brief introduction shows that school-age educare is regarded as important for young children’s learning and care and that the preconditions for fulfilling these assignments are not favourable. The article focuses on how staff at three SAECs have tried to fulfil their mission during the centres’ afternoon activities and how they reason about some of their everyday practices. The study’s research questions are: (i) What kind of patterns of recurrent practices and social relations do SAEC staff members produce and reproduce when fulfilling their mission? (ii) What kind of issues do the staff emphasize when discussing difficulties of fulfilling the assignment?

Research on the work carried out in school-age educare centres

Although research on SAECs and their staff has increased of late, it is still sparse compared to research on preschools and primary schools. While in the late 20th and early 21st centuries research on SAECs mostly dealt with children’s encounters with and at school, more recent studies have often honed in on different aspects of the SAEC’s afternoon activities: play, the staff’s new tasks and work situation and the emergence of a new and somewhat different profession.

Play is an important part of the centre’s afternoon activities. Its aim is to promote social competences and is often discussed in research on SAECs (Haglund & Peterson, 2017; Jonsson & Lillvist, 2019; Kane, Ljusberg, & Larsson, 2013; Lager, 2016). Haglund and Peterson (2017) describes and discusses why SAEC staff use board games as an activity; one common point of departure being that board games help to promote social competences. In the interviews with SAEC staff conducted by Jonsson and Lillvist (2019), similar sentiments are expressed, for example that ‘guided play and free play’ are considered to be activities that stimulate social learning. Lager (2016) has studied the use of ‘play boxes’ in SAEC activities.⁴ SAEC teachers use these play boxes as tools to facilitate interacting and playing together in a safe environment. The aim of this play-oriented operation mode is to develop safety, social relations and social competences. Kane et al. (2013) discuss how the staff manage tensions between children who explore their agency in play and what the different constraints of the setting are. This management is handled in different ways depending on which approaches the staff use in their judgements of the ongoing play.

The leisure-time pedagogue profession has been reshaped to the extent that the present premises are in conflict with the staff’s ambitions to maintain their traditional relational working method (Andersson, 2013). In the new curriculum, the staff are expected to stimulate pupils’ learning and their social development, as well as supplement school work. SAECs were formerly regarded as self-sufficient and locally bound practices. However, due to structural changes and the incorporation of SAECs in the Education Act, they have now become an integral part of a more coherent school system (Holmberg, 2017). This has led to problems concerning the curriculum’s intentions since the staff perceive their work as stressful, partly due to a decreased teacher to child ratio, reduced resources and limiting frame factors (Andersson, 2013; Boström & Berg, 2018). The possibilities of creating good learning environments for all children in this new pedagogical landscape are therefore seen as problematic (Boström et al., 2015) and concerns about these aspects have been raised by local authorities, consumer groups and researchers (e.g. Boström & Augustsson, 2016).

This new and changed work situation is discussed by Ackesjö, Lindqvist, and Nordänger (2018) in relation to the newly educated staff in SAECs and school, and their encounters with other teachers and leisure-time pedagogues at the SAEC. The newly educated staff regard themselves as ‘resource teachers’ or special needs teachers, which means that they are also used in positions other than teaching the practical/aesthetic subject for which they are qualified. This means that they have ‘encountered a reality that differs from the images and visions they had created during their education’ (p. 893).

Theory

The theoretical point of departure emanates from concepts based on Giddens (1984) theory of structuration. Giddens uses the concepts structure, social system and structuration, where structure is both a general term and structuring property that binds time and space in social systems. A social system, for example a school that includes an SAEC, is a pattern of recurrent practices and social relations that are maintained across time and space. From this perspective, activities within a school are both a consequence of and a medium for the social practice the involved actors participate in. When actors, for example staff at SAECs, produce and reproduce structures, they also recreate the conditions for the social practices they are involved in and thereby contribute to the structuration of the social system.

The pattern in the social system is constituted by recursively organized sets of rules and resources that the actors use in their interactions with each other. Rules are described as rights and obligations, or unwritten norms for how to act and interact. However, these norms can differ, especially as some rooms/places and settings for interactions have different meanings. The social practice in a specific room can differ from the social practice in other rooms, or at a certain point in time, which means that actors regard some rooms, for example in a school, as more important than others and establish themselves in these spaces, perhaps at specific times throughout the day. Giddens depicts resources as either being authoritative or allocative. Authoritative resources are ‘types of transformative capacity generating command over persons or actors’ (Giddens, 1984, p. 33), while allocative resources are seen as capabilities to generate command over goods or material phenomena. Giddens argues that actors have different power positions and know how to continue to draw on different rules and resources in their interactions. However, the rules that are involved in the production and reproduction of social practices are often only tacitly understood. This is depicted as a practical consciousness that is supported by a discursive consciousness (Giddens, 1984), where the latter is described as ‘ … knowledge which actors are able to express on the level of discourse’ (Giddens, 1979, p. 5). In order to depict and discuss how pedagogues at SAECs implement and argue for the different activities, it is essential to study their strategic conduct, i.e. how they perform their work and how they talk about it. This is what we set out to capture in this study.

Method

In an ontological sense, we assume that conditions at SAECs are mainly constructed by the staff’s designation of what is going on there. Therefore, our epistemological focus is their understanding of their responsibilities and duties and the circumstances in which they find themselves working. We adopted a concurrent mixed-method design consisting of a qualitative case study with an ethnographically inspired approach (cf. Yin, 2014). Yin asserts that there is a twofold, technical definition of case studies, which implies that the empirical inquiry investigates a phenomenon (i.e. the production and reproduction of recurrent practices and social relations at SAECs and the issues that are emphasized when discussing everyday practice situations) in depth and in its actual context. Furthermore, eventual boundaries between the phenomenon and context are not obvious (i.e. in this case the pattern of recurrent practices and social relations that are maintained across time and space).

The three SAECs

This study has a multiple-case design and includes three different SAECs – The Bluebird at Minstrel School and The Small Bullfinch and The Big Bullfinch at Whistler School.⁵ Bluebird is one of five SAECs at Minstrel School; a school of approximately 320 pupils located in a large city close to the city centre in a newly built area dominated by flats. According to Bl1, one of the staff members at The Bluebird, the pupils’ parents are well educated. Many of them had moved to Sweden from other countries and in general their children have a good knowledge of the Swedish language (cf. Haglund, 2018). A total of 41 pupils aged 6–7 years participated in The Bluebird’s SAEC activities. Two staff members work at The Bluebird: Bl1, a qualified leisure-time pedagogue, and Bl2, an unqualified substitute. As the only permanent employee, Bl1 was the only staff member that was interviewed. At the end of the study, Bl3, who had recently qualified as an extended teacher at the SAEC, replaced Bl2. Bl3 and Bl1 took part in the concluding focus group interview. Apart from Bl1 and Bl2, a pre-school teacher and a primary school teacher worked at The Bluebird during school hours, although they were rarely involved in SAEC activities.

Whistler School is located in another large municipality some way away from Minstrel School and is a K-6 school, a school that enrol students from kindergarten (age 6) to 6th grade (up to age 12), with about 240 pupils. The school has two SAECs: The Small Bullfinch for younger children (6–7 years) and The Big Bullfinch for children aged 8–12 years. Both SAECs have similar conditions for conducting and planning their work, which takes place during school hours and in the afternoon. 58 pupils aged 6–7 years take part in the activities at The Small Bullfinch and the staff consists of eight pedagogues and an assistant. 74 pupils aged 8–12 years participate in the activities for older children, which are supervised by four members of staff. Whistler School differs from the other schools in the municipality in several respects. For example, there is a relatively high proportion of boys in the preschool class, a high proportion of pupils with a foreign background and a low proportion of parents with post-secondary school backgrounds (Table 1).

Table 1. Number of pupils and staff at each SAEC.

	The Big Bullfinch	The Small Bullfinch	The Bluebird
Pupils	74	58	41
Staff	4	9	2

Seven people, all of whom were selected by the team leader, were interviewed individually at the two SAECs at Whistler School and participated in the focus group interviews. On the staff's initiative, one person was added in conjunction with the follow-up focus group interviews but was not asked to participate in the previous individual interviews due to being a new employee.

The staff’s education differed. Some were leisure-time pedagogues, while others had a background as a preschool teacher, a sports teacher, a social scientist, a child minder and a senior level school teacher. Some were qualified as leisure-time pedagogues, whereas others were not. The selection of people included both men and women, although the majority were women.

Minstrel School and Whistler School were chosen because they were well-established and situated in easily accessible areas, which can be described as a convenience sample (Bryman, 2018). The researchers planned the data collection together, but completed the fieldwork separately, i.e. one researcher conducted the fieldwork at The Bluebird and the other at two SAECs at Whistler School. The researchers presented the study at their respective schools and the staff were encouraged to ask questions about it. Ethical research principles were taken into account in the study's implementation. All those involved in the study were informed about it before it began, about the researchers’ presence and their right to withdraw from the study at any time. All the interviewees consented to taking part in the study.

Data collection and processing

The fieldwork consisted of observations, writing field notes, interviews conducted during the autumn and winter terms in 2016 and vignettes at the beginning of 2017 (see Table 2 for detailed information). The approach implied research that emphasized the importance of studying people’s activity contexts and understanding the perspectives of the people being studied, while simultaneously developing meta-analytic insights (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007). The study’s use of these different methods for data collection aimed at discussing the staff members’ use of rules and resources to fulfil their mission at the SAECs, which rules and resources were emphasized and how this contributed to reproducing the SAEC as a social system. Observations and field notes facilitated the study of the pedagogues’ practical consciousness (cf. Giddens, 1984), methods and teaching in the ongoing activities and the rules and resources highlighted in the everyday social practice. The observations were performed after school as participating observations at the SAECs about 2–3 times a week during the field studies. The observations lasted between three to four hours at every occasion. During the observations field notes, i.e. writing down scenes, settings, conversations and spontaneous field interviews, were used as a tool to describe the social practice (cf. Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007).

Table 2. The empirical data for the study.

Empirical data	Bluebird	Code	Documented text	Bullfinch	Code	Documented text
Introduction call	2			1
Number of Observations and field notes	10	Bl Fn1-10	16 A4 pages/12 point	8	BBf Fn 1–3, SBf Fn 1–5	10 A4 pages/12 point
Interviews	1	Bl I1	15 A4 pages/12 point	7	BBf I 1–3, SBf I 1–4	50 A4 pages/12 point
Vignette	1	Bl 1,3 V3	2 A4 pages/12 point	2	BBf 1–3 V3, SBf 1–4 V3	16 A4 pages/12 point

The interviews complemented the observations and the field notes in terms of how the pedagogues applied formal guidelines and organized the everyday practice.

The use of vignettes is an interview technique that provides sketches of fictional scenarios. They can be used in structured in-depth interviews and in focus groups (Bloor & Wood, 2006) and take the form of snapshots or stories that unfold in different stages and are presented on paper or through videotapes (Jenkins, Bloor, Fischer, Berney, & Neale, 2010).⁶ Drawing on their own experience, the respondent(s) are invited to imagine how the content should be understood, or why characters in the scenario behave the way they do. As such, vignettes collect situated data concerning group values, beliefs and norms of behaviour (Bloor & Wood, 2006). In this study, five vignettes were used in the focus groups in which the informants read short stories and discussed them afterwards. The vignettes were constructed based on findings from the interviews and observations and described the situations as realistically as possible (cf. Renold, 2002). The vignettes were validated as possible everyday situations by three research colleagues with experience of working in SAECs. The results from the vignette that was discussed most by the participants and focused on the difficulties of fulfilling the assignment are detailed in this study (see Appendix 1).

The processing of the data material implied searching for patterns in the data material and producing different themes describing the everyday practice. This was carried out with the aid of thematic analysis, which ‘ … involves the searching across a data set – be that a number of interviews or focus groups, or a range of texts – to find repeated patterns of meaning’ (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 86). The study has been guided by Braun and Clarke’s step-by-step thematic analysis, which involved searching for repeated patterns of meaning and included transcribing, reading and re-reading the data, coding the data’s interesting features, searching for potential themes, checking whether the themes were appropriate with regard to the coded extracts and, finally, naming the themes and producing the report.

The analysis of the field notes and the interviews has aimed to answer the article’s first research question: Which patterns of recurrent practices and social relations do SAEC staff members produce and reproduce when fulfilling their mission? The produced themes describe which content and activities the staff emphasize both in school and at the SAEC, and also the kind of problems they highlight in this work.

The results from the vignettes respond to the second research question: What kind of issues do the staff emphasize when discussing an everyday practice situation based on a vignette? The results from the informants’ discussions about this vignette are presented in the following themes: lack of time for planning the work, a divided work mission, and school management.

Results

The results are described in two different sections. The first section focuses on the staff members’ production and reproduction of patterns of recurrent practices and social relations, and in that way responds to the first research question. The second section focuses on the staff members’ emphasis on substance when discussing an everyday practice situation and responds to the second research question. The results from the SAECs are discussed in both these sections. The concluding part of the article compares and thoroughly discusses how the three SAECs fulfil their mission, how the staff members produce and reproduce recurrent practices and social relations, and the issues that are emphasized by the staff when discussing the vignette.

The staff members’ production and reproduction of patterns of recurrent practices and social relations

Minstrel school

When the work at Minstrel School was discussed it became evident that Bl1 worked at the school during school hours and also in the afternoon with SAEC activities. The work during school hours was scheduled so that B11 could take responsibility for play activities during the school’s lunch breaks and sometimes also during the mid-morning breaks. Bl1, the primary school teacher and the preschool teacher also tried to support each other as and when needed, even when they were engaged in other work. This became visible on two separate occasions. The first occasion was when Bl1, Bl2, a teacher student and one of the researchers were sitting in The Bluebird’s small office preparing the afternoon’s activities before the pupils arrived from their classrooms. A child’s angry shout was heard outside the office. Bl1 opened the door and left the meeting to see what was happening and returned about 40 min later. Bl1 had tried to appease the angry pupil and in that way support the primary school teacher meanwhile she was teaching the other pupils. As a counterperformance the class teacher replaced Bl1 during the SAEC snack time (Bl Fn2). The second occasion concerned a change in The Bluebird’s circle time, which always took place directly after school. During circle time both staff and pupils were sitting on the floor in a circle. Circle time was performed as a time for gathering the group, checking that all pupils were present and providing information about the afternoon activities and used to last about 10–20 min. Bl1 described how the staff had talked about how they might manage circle time in a better way. Some of the pupils disturbed the structure of the circle time – especially when it was managed by Bl2. In order to help Bl2 to manage circle time more smoothly, it was decided that the primary school teacher would keep some of her pupils who were identified as disrupting the activity in the classroom during circle time and in that way support the SAEC (Bl Fn5).

The everyday practice at The Bluebird after school was to include a limited number of activities, which were repeated during the field work. During the interview, Bl1 said:

The most common thing we do is to have circle time after school and then go for a snack. We go to the drill hall on Mondays, which is something rather new. We have been doing that for at least two weeks./ … / Eh, we have been doing different things on Tuesdays. First, we are mostly, or always, out of doors. We then play here at The Bluebird. We bring our snacks with us on Wednesdays and for that reason we can be out of doors for longer. Ehm, we go out of doors on Thursdays and Fridays as well and then play here [at The Bluebird]. Sometimes we provide some pottering to structure an activity and in that way offer more activities. (Bl I1)

Her answer indicates that few activities are involved and that she wanted to offer more activities. The reason for being out of doors a lot is due to her belief that physical activity outside is good for children.

And you automatically move more if you are out of doors. It is also about having different play environments. We go to different places and there’s a different kind of playing in these places. It also differs from playing indoors eh, and is more stimulating. (Bl I1)

Besides the importance of physical activity, play is also seen as important, ‘Everything is incorporated in play. You learn how to behave with others, how to deal with conflicts, how you eh, wait for your turn, fantasy, to move again’ (Bl I1). As indicated above. Bl1 also wanted to offer more activities, although this was hampered by problems in finding a staff member who could work permanently at The Bluebird. B1 I1 claimed that the management had told the staff member who was originally supposed to work with her that she was needed in another department at the school. Over the last months a lot of unqualified substitutes had been working at The Bluebird and often only stayed there for a short time. Bl2, who enjoyed the work but was not trained to work in an SAEC, had been in place for a while. Bl1 thought that the autumn term had been very difficult and that at times the practice could have been regarded as supervision, although Bl2 contributed by giving the everyday work more stability even though she had little or no knowledge of the content of the SAEC’s steering documents. This increased stability encouraged Bl1 to introduce more activities, although she remained critical. She claimed that there was a lack of governance on the part of the SAEC’s management and that classroom activities were prioritized. The SAECs at Minstrel School had also been subjected to staff cuts, which had resulted in full-time posts becoming part-time. According to B11, this had had a negative effect on the planning of the SAEC’s activities together with Bl2 and in attracting qualified SAEC staff to seek employment at Minstrel School (Bl I1).

Whistler school

In discussions with the staff at Whistler School, it was evident that they worked at the school during the day and in the mornings and afternoons at the SAECs. The staff at The Big Bullfinch worked more in the school, which included everything from being in the classroom as a resource teacher, to working with smaller groups of pupils and leading sports sessions. In the afternoon the children had to walk from their classrooms to the SAECs, and it took time to gather them. The staff felt that this divided working day between school and the SAEC made the work fragmentary. The transition from school to SAEC time was described in the following way:

It's very messy / … / getting them to work is very difficult, because they are really tired after a long school day. So we eat snacks and try to get them to relax. After that we go into the forest so that they can cool down. (SBf I2)

The work content and activities in school and at the SAEC sometimes overlapped, which meant that synergy effects could be achieved but also that problematic situations could arise. School work, such as homework, theme work and aesthetic/practical activities, affected and sometimes interacted with the activities at the SAECs. For example, the children could do their homework at the SAEC, or continue with thematic work from school. In the research observations the pupils were rehearsing for the Lucia celebrations on 13 December. The staff’s views on this were twofold in that they partly expressed appreciation at being able to offer the children a coherent school day, and partly that the content was determined by the school’s activities.

The SAEC has never had any status … . unlike the preschool. When the SAEC became part of the school more “school” crept into our activities … and it was difficult to see the whole picture as it was intended for the child [anymore]. (SBf I4)

A recurring issue in the staff’s discussions was the SAEC’s subordination to the school’s structure, i.e. SAEC activities were perceived to have a lower status than those in school and many of the activities in the SAEC were governed by the school’s work. It was argued that more resources were allocated to the school and that the SAEC’s work was seen as less important. This is how one pedagogue expressed it: ‘And we understand that it will be a low priority. Because it is still the school's activities that count as the most important’ (SBf I3).

The everyday practice at both SAECS included quite a lot of different activities in a weekly schedule. There were two fixed outdoor days, when they either went into the forest or to the beach, one day was for singing in a choir, reading aloud, or dance and movement activities. The size and location of Whistler School facilitated many different activities. The outdoor environment, especially the forest, enabled planned play and free activities: ‘ … the staff plan games and sometimes we are only there as support and the children can find their own things to do’ (BBf Fn5). The staff also expressed that the activities in the forest encouraged the children’s social cooperation and socialization. One staff member expressed the following: ‘ … . they build huts, are friends and cooperate well then … ’ (BBf I1). The outdoor play in the forest also seemed to be a way of getting away from conflicts in the school playground. The staff emphasized the importance of creating security and good relations in the SAEC and being exemplary in their relationships with each other.

Staff at the SAECs at Whistler School also said that the pupils could engage in traditional activities, such as table games, crafts, Lego, baking and table tennis, which were seen as ‘traditional SAECs activities’. The planning time that previously existed for SAEC work was ‘eaten up’ by everyday problems and emergency measures. Instead of working on deferred planning time, the staff had to stand in for teachers or other staff. This, in turn, meant that the SAEC’s learning activities could not be implemented to the extent expected by the school authorities. Given the staff’s actual work situation, purposeful and systematic curriculum work seemed to be neglected, which created a feeling of inadequacy and stress amongst the staff. The implementation of the new curriculum also became more reactive and experience-based. During one of the field studies the staff showed how they checked the different reading plan targets against the activities that were carried out (SBf Fn 2). Another problem area emphasized by the staff in the everyday work was the importance of a structured leadership. It also became evident in the initial field studies (BBf Fn4) that the leadership was strict and almost supervisory. One concrete example was how the staff constantly tried to curb high sounds and harsh gestures during snack time. Another example was a group baking activity. As long as everything ran smoothly the staff remained calm, but when disturbances arose, such as loud discussions, this noise was immediately suppressed. The leadership structure was also commented on in the interviews. The leadership included checking and reviewing the planned activities, managing conflicts and synchronizing all the activities. Words that the staff used to describe the leadership were ‘setting boundaries’ (BBf Fn 4), ‘being clear, determined and consistent’ (SBf Fn2) and ‘mediating’ (BBf Fn1). In this context, it was also emphasized that the staff had to be flexible in their leadership and working methods, because the activities were governed, regulated and arranged in accordance with the practical settings.

What kind of issues do the staff emphasize when discussing difficulties of fulfilling the assignment?

The results concerning the second research question deal with the outcomes from the vignette (see Appendix 1).

Lack of time for planning the work

Although not everyone recognized the various viewpoints that were expressed, the lack of time for preparation and being able to do their work in a proper manner were things that all the staff agreed on.

There is always a lack of time. Eh, but I can say that I don’t recognize that they are not interested and that someone is playing with their mobile phone and so on. Eh, I have never seen that here, but you can disagree with each other but not in … the way described here. (Bl3 V3)

The vignette encouraged the informants to talk about their own work situations in terms of what they recognized or did not recognize. Several of the informants reflected on their opportunities, or lack of them, to sit down together and plan their mutual work with the pupils. The allocated time for planning was one hour a week at both The Bluebird and The Bullfinch and, as there were often many things to work through, it was argued that this amount of time was not sufficient.

No, but I am thinking of all things without … yes one hour a week of planning together [inaudible] feels somewhat little in the current situation. Since there are so many things that should be done. (SBf2 V3)

The work with the pupils and the opportunity to reflect together were seen as important aspects of the planning, although time for mutual reflection and forward planning was regarded as rare. This is described in the following two quotations.

We are here, we have to see that the children are alright when we are here. Yes. On the other hand, I think that it’s also important to have time for reflection and such things. Time for reflection in our situation - to actually sit down together and [discuss] ‘How should we solve this? How should we continue to make this work?’ (BBf2 V3)

I am sorry to say that short-term [planning] dominates because there is no time to plan anything more long-term. It’s like that all the time. It just feels like a way to survive. (BBf1 V3)

The above quotations indicate the importance of looking after the pupils so that they had a good time at the SAEC. However, mutual planning was also essential for developing the activity. The staff needed to discuss how to solve the different problems that arose and also needed to draw up joint strategies for the future. However, their opportunities to plan for the future were seen as very limited. SBf2 V3 also argued that discussing steering documents was not emphasized as they were only able to plan for the short-term, often by communicating with each other during their everyday work with the pupils. This is highlighted in the following quotation.

Interviewer: But is it correct that … if I understand it correctly, that it is the more long-term, strategical, pedagogical activities that they are neglected?

BBf 3V3: Yes, it has been more like putting out fires.

BBf1 V3: Mm, unfortunately.

A divided work mission

When the informants at The Bullfinch discussed their work situation through the vignette and highlighted the problem of finding time to discuss and develop the everyday work at the centre, they emphasized how their work was organized. Besides managing the activities and the pupils at the SAEC they were also expected to work in the school during school hours. This meant that they had a divided work mission and had to make an effort to make both ends meet – both during school hours and before and after school at the SAEC.

The need [for us] in the classroom is so huge that we should be there all time [during school hours]. Therefore, they find it very difficult to release us. (BBf3 V3)

The above quotation shows that the teachers were in great need of support in the classroom during the school day. Thus, the amount of help they are able to give to the teachers implies that set-up time, which they think they are in need of, is seen as a precious but rare phenomenon. This is underlined in the following quotation.

Yes, I wish … hopefully we get some set-up time between school and SAEC. Sometimes we get it and sometimes we don’t. We also have to step in [to support teachers in school] so it is not … you don’t even get five minutes but have to run between the two. And I think it is … I don’t like to work in this way/ … /. (SBf2 V3)

The lack of set-up time meant that they had to leave the classrooms along with the pupils after school and move to the SAEC together with them. They therefore had to do the preparation and attend to the pupils at the same time, instead of already having everything prepared. They had very few opportunities to prepare SAEC activities in advance and instead, as SBf2 V3 asserted during the vignette discussion, had to communicate with each other in quick conversations during the afternoon activities when the pupils were present. The above quotation also indicates that the SAEC staff were supposed to deputize if one of the schoolteachers was sick or absent for some reason, which contributed to a shortage of available time for planning the SAEC work. However, that schoolteachers deputized if one of the SAEC staff was absent was not seen as routine by the SAEC staff. The staff solution to the divided work problem was to limit their participation in the classroom and have more time for planning the SAEC activities.

School management

The vignette discussions also revealed how the SAEC and school management were conducted. The staff at The Bluebird emphasized how the staff in the vignette could change their situation and that they should inform the principal about the current situation.

Well, they are due to report to the principal next week. They will need to talk to the principal and tell him … what it is like. / … / Because they will not be able to complete it now. Not a chance! I also claim that it leads to a lot of frustration when pedagogues dońt have time to carry out their everyday work. And in that case it will be difficult to work at a higher or deeper level, it depends on how you like to put it. / … / They have skipped the last three meetings. In that case I think that they have concerns at the school and that is something the principal must be informed about - if he doesn’t already know it. It is important that he is informed. (Bl1 V3)

Here, the respondent is critical of the service conditions described by the vignette. The critique highlights the principal’s need to be informed about the current work situation. The Bullfinch discussions were partly directed at the principal’s management role and partly to their own principal and their relation to him. As the quotation below indicates, he was highly appreciated.

I have to say this, he is probably the principal, in this town at least, that tries to make it work at the SAECs. He is not just interested in what happens mid-mornings / … /. But, practically, it is the budget that steers and we have to solve it. Moreover, we are assigned more and more [tasks]. (BBf2 V3)

According to the staff at Whistler School, the principal seemed to support the SAEC staff. However, it was also claimed that he was compelled to keep the budget tight, which affected SAEC activities. This also meant that the SAEC staff had to carry out more tasks than before and were left on their own to find solutions. The discussions emphasized that finding solutions also meant not using deputies at the SAEC because ‘ … we are not allowed to do that, we have to … we have to work it out for ourselves’ (BBf1 V3). The management’s expressions of supporting the SAEC, combined with talk about the budget, were seen as ambiguous, especially as The Bullfinch staff also thought the preconditions for their work differed from those of the schoolteachers. One example of the different preconditions between schoolteachers and SAEC staff was the opportunity to have a teachers’ day. These occasions were only offered to the schoolteachers and during that time the pupils attended the SAECs. The staff at the SAECs were not supposed to have a teachers’ day, although it was something that they were in need of. The perceived result of the divided work mission is illustrated in the following quotation.

Interviewer: So in reality, they [the school] are tripping the SAEC activity when you are complementing school? Could it be interpreted in that way?

SBf4 V3: That was a good expression. That’s the way it is. Yes/ … /.

Concluding discussion

The three described SAECs have similar conditions for carrying out their mission, although these diverge in some areas. The social systems at The Bluebird and the two SAECs at Whistler School imply work in school during school hours and work with SAEC activities in the afternoon. However, the staff at all three SAECs highlight that the work in school is regarded as more important than that at the SAECs and that more resources are allocated to the school. This allocation is shown through staff cuts and an absent SAEC management team at The Bluebird, while the staff at Whistler School’s SAECs highlight that their work has a lower status than that of the teachers. This means that the schools’ social systems and patterns of recurrent practices support a practice that maintains the subordination of the SAECs to the schools (cf. Calander, 1999; Hansen, 1999). The staff at the three SAECs all emphasize play and outdoor activities, which are seen as developing social competences, as indicated in research on the role of play in SAECs (Haglund & Peterson, 2017; Jonsson & Lillvist, 2019; Lager, 2016). From this perspective, the three SAECs use the same rules and unwritten norms for how to act and carry out their work (Giddens, 1984).

However, there are differences between the SAECs concerning the number and spread of activities and the demarcation of SAEC and school activities in the afternoons. Both SAECs at Whistler School have activities that overlap with school activities in the afternoon, which is not the case at The Bluebird. There are less planned activities at The Bluebird due to the perceived uncertainty of staff availability and the difficulty of employing trained staff. From this perspective, staff availability and stability are seen as opportunities to increase the number of activities. However, the staff factor is also due to the number of pupils at Whistler School’s SAECs compared to that at Minstrel School. The number of pupils at the SAECs at Whistler School is not regarded as a resource or as a limitation per se. Rather, the focus is on the fact that several of the pupils find it difficult to get on with others. This is also seen as an argument for doing some of the activities out of doors, which is seen as a way of ‘cooling them down’. The staff at Whistler School’s SAECs also perceive a need to deal with conflicts by, for example, ‘setting boundaries’ and ‘being clear’. This approach and the unwritten norms for how to act (cf. Giddens, 1984) are not highlighted at The Bluebird, which indicates that the structuring properties for staff–student relations in The Bluebird’s everyday practice diverges from those of the SAECs at Whistler School. However, the perceived need to create serenity at the two SAECs at Whistler School is aggravated by the pupils’ and staff’s mutual transportations between the classrooms and the SAECs, and the fact that the staff have no time to plan or prepare the SAEC activities. In contrast, the staff at The Bluebird do have time to prepare their activities before the pupils arrive. In addition, if the staff at The Bluebird are in need of support, the teacher and the preschool teacher they cooperate with try to assist them, which differentiates the production and reproduction of social practice at The Bluebird from that of the SAECs at Whistler School (cf. Giddens, 1984). The social practices, in the form of different rules and resources, at the two SAECs at Whistler School are similar, although it would have been possible to create different social systems. Nevertheless, their use of rules and resources diverge from the social practice at The Bluebird, which also is accentuated in the results of the vignette.

The staff at all the SAECs agree that they lack time to mutually plan the work, which results in short-term planning and difficulties in discussing and conforming to the relevant steering documents. This is emphasized most at the SAECs at Whistler School, which could be connected to an improved staff situation at The Bluebird and the better preconditions there for mutual planning. The divided work mission is seen as a severe problem at Whistler School’s SAECs, but is not discussed at all by The Bluebird staff. According to the initial fieldwork, this is a result of the SAECs using different sets of rules and resources (Giddens, 1984). The rules that contribute to establishing the social practice at The Bluebird imply a circumscription of what the SAEC staff should be working with during school hours (responsibility for play activities during lunch breaks and mid-morning breaks). The rules concerning work during school hours, i.e. unwritten norms for how to act and interact at Whistler School’s SAECs are rather contradictory. The staff at Whistler School’s SAECs have many different functions during school hours (cf. Ackesjö et al., 2018) and the unwritten norm for their work during this time is to support the classroom teachers, which is closely connected to the perceived lack of time for planning SAEC activities. The work situation therefore results in fragmentation and frustration at the time wastage and lack of planning time for the staff.

The results from the vignette also show differences between The Bluebird and the two SAECs at Whistler School concerning the reasoning about the management’s role in relation to the staff’s opportunities to carry out their work. While the staff at The Bluebird emphasize that the staff could change their situation, the staff at the two SAECs at Whistler School seem to accept the situation in the vignette and compare that to their own situation. This could, using Giddens’ perspective, be seen as two different patterns of recurrent practices that are maintained across time and space (Giddens, 1984). By opposing or accepting the current social system, the actors are involved in the production and reproduction of the SAECs social practices and in that way contribute to the structuring of the social system. The staff at The Bluebird discuss opportunities to use their authoritative resources to change the current practice, whereas the staff at The Big Bullfinch and The Small Bullfinch accept the current practice, i.e. the budget dictates changes in the social practice. They feel that while their principal supports them, neither they nor the principal have any authoritative resources to change the budget. The principal’s opportunities to reallocate resources from the school to the SAECs within the budgetary framework, and in that way counteract the subordination of SAECs vis-a-vis the school, is not reflected on.

This study verifies that some factors, such as budgetary cuts and a decreasing proportion of staff who are qualified to work at SAECs, have affected the quality of the SAEC and its possibilities to create a good learning environment (Andersson, 2013; Boström & Berg, 2018; SNAE, 2018; Swedish Schools Inspectorate, 2010, 2018). The study also suggests that findings from the late 1990s (cf. Calander, 1999; Hansen, 1999) highlighting SAEC staff’s subordinated position compared to that of class teachers is still relevant, although the SAEC, through new steering documents, should now be seen as an institution with more status than before. One way for SAECs to improve their possibilities of creating good learning environments, besides increased opportunities to employ qualified staff, could be to demarcate the staff’s work in school. However, this demarcation should be based on strong authoritative resources (Giddens, 1984), which the SAEC staff, through their power positions, do not always have. This indicates that a more distinct description of the SAEC staff’s responsibilities during their work in school is needed and that more research on their work in school is required.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Björn Haglund

Björn Haglund is Associate Professor in Child and Youth Studies. His research is mainly directed to School-age Educare. Theoretical point of departures have been critical discourse analysis, childhood sociology and Giddens theory of structuration.

Lena Boström

Lena Boström is Professor in Education. Her research is directed to various educational areas such, for example; teaching and learning environments, teacher´s leadership and school development. This research has used different theoretical starting points, for example quantitative approaches, content analysis and literature reviews.

Notes

1 Pálsdóttir (2012) focuses on after-school services in Iceland, but also compares these institutions with similar institutions in the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Sweden and Norway.

2 School-age educare centres were formerly called leisure-time centres in English. The change of the English terminology should be seen as a way of highlighting that the activities carried out in these institutions are a combination of education and care.

3 During this period, most of the leisure-time centre staff were leisure-time pedagogues. Although leisure-time pedagogues are not qualified teachers, they have a university education and are qualified to work in SAECs.

4 A play box is a box that contains play material, such as baking tools. Every play box contains different play material and the children are expected to choose a box and, together with others, play and interact with that material.

5 All the names of people, SAECs and schools in this article are fictitious. When quoting or referring to the interviewees, Bl is used for staff at The Bluebird, and SBf or BBf for staff at The Small Bullfinch and The Big Bullfinch.

6 In this study the vignettes have been discussed through focus group interviews. A focus group interview is, according to Kvale and Brinkmann (2009), useful when studying people’s collective construction of meaning in practice and to bring forth different views and understandings.

Appendix 1

Vignette 3: to develop quality in the SAEC according to valid steering documents

The Swedish Schools Inspectorate has commented on pupils’ development, learning and results. The staff are discussing what the pupils learn at the SAEC and how this is communicated. The staff are under pressure and disagree about what to work with, what they have been working with earlier and how to continue. The Team leader and Teacher 1 are disillusioned about the work, which is supposed to be presented to the principal next week.

The Team leader wants to develop this work, but Teacher 1 regards it as pointless, because the staff have not been able to meet regularly due of a lack of personnel. There are four other teachers in the room. They are worried and feel under pressure. The mood is resigned. Two other teachers are ‘playing’ with their mobile phones.

The Team leader wants to document what the pupils are learning at the SAEC and how the staff understand, analyse and communicate this to and together with the children.

‘OK’, says the Team leader, ‘what are we going to write about how and what has Anna learned from our work with the water theme?’

‘What learning?’ asks Teacher 1. ‘I did not have time to write anything down. We only have 30 min for reflection and that week I had to stand in for Teacher 5 who was ill. By the way, we dropped the last three development meetings because we did not have enough staff. And the children come first.’

‘But’, says the Team leader, ‘we should have read about ‘Childrens learning’ in the steering documents and observed some of the children.’

‘How am I supposed to use it in the documentation?’ asks Teacher 1. ‘This is a waste of time … ’

‘But we must have something for the presentation’, says the Team leader in an appealing voice. ‘Can we start writing now … ?’

‘No’, says Teacher 1, ‘I suggest that we work with our personal planning for next week instead!’

Who would you follow: the Team leader or Teacher 1? Or would you find another solution?