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.

KEYWORDS:

• School-age educare
• educational programme
• pupils’ interests
• children’s perspective
• staff perspective

Background

The interest of this research is directed towards how staff make an inventory of the pupils’ interests in school-age educare (SAEC) settings in Sweden. Extended Education, called SAEC in Sweden, is not mandatory, but 82% of all 6–9-year-olds attend (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2022b). SAEC organize the institutional leisure time for younger school children before and after school and during the school holidays. It is associated with children's free time and independence and includes both child-initiated and staff-planned activities. Traditionally, what children spend their time with at SAEC has been free play and group-oriented activities, with central values such as social relations and children’s freedom of choice (Klerfelt, Haglund, Andersson, & Kane, 2019). In recent decades, SAEC has undergone a number of major changes. Today, the SAEC is largely locally integrated into the schools and is governed by the Education Act (SFS, 2010, p. 800) and the Curriculum for the compulsory school, pre-school class, and school-age educare (SNAE, 2022a). The groups of children in SAEC have grown while fewer staff are available. When SAEC received its own part – Part 4 – in the curriculum in 2016, the assignment shifted towards teaching and learning, leading to tensions between traditions and new demands (Klerfelt et al., 2019). The Swedish National Agency for Education demands that SAEC should have an ‘educational programme / … / based on the pupils’ needs, interests and initiative’ (SNAE, 2011, p. 23). The concept of ‘educational programme’ is new and aims to point out that the children – in Part 4 called pupils – will receive teaching. In terms of teaching, the education programme should be ‘ … given a broad interpretation in school-age educare, where care, development and teaching constitute a whole’ (SNAE, 2011, p. 23). Teaching in SAEC is thus based on a special kind of pedagogy where care, development, and teaching should be based on the pupils’ needs, interests, and initiative. Thus, staff in SAEC are facing a new situation. They can rest in a tradition of starting in free play, group-oriented activities, and children’s freedom of choice, but today they are also guided by the curriculum, and they must take into account pupils’ interests. However, it is not clear how this is to be carried out. If the staff fails to base their educational approach on children’s interests the unique combination of education and care in SAEC with a starting point in children’s perspectives risks getting lost. In 2018 a three-year action research project began exploring how basing the educational programme on pupils’ needs, interests, and initiatives can be achieved. This article reports on the first semester of the study, where the staff investigated how to find out the children’s needs, interests, and initiatives. Children’s perspectives, child perspective (Halldén, 2003; Ljusberg, 2009), and generational order (Alanen, 1992; Honig, 2011; Mayall, 2008) forms the basis of the action research project. When pupils give their views, it is called ‘children's perspective’, while ‘child perspective’ refers to adults’ views of children and children's circumstances and the children themselves do not have the opportunity to give their views (Halldén, 2003; Ljusberg, 2009). Specifically, the interest of the research was directed towards how staff makes an inventory of the pupils’ interests. In this case, to make an inventory means that the staff turns to the pupils before planning, in order to investigate what interests they have and what they want to do in the SAEC, both in the short and the long term.

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 by 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 questions this article explores are:

• What are the different forms of inventories used by staff in SAEC when planning the educational programme?

• What are the different perspectives used by staff in SAEC when planning the educational programme?

Literature review

The specific demand for SAEC to provide an educational programme based on the pupils’ needs, interests, and initiatives has been explored in research by Elvstrand and Lago (2020). They used symbolic interactionism and the concept of inhabited institutions as a theoretical perspective when analysing teachers’ meaning-making and interactions between teachers and pupils at SAEC. Their interviews with teachers in three different SAEC settings show tensions between the staff’s traditional way of working and the demands they perceive from the new part of the curriculum. Pupils’ own choices have become important in order to maintain a balance between pupils’ own choices and teacher-led activities (Elvstrand & Lago, 2020). The results show that despite the fact that teachers see pupils’ choices as important, their opportunities to choose are limited both when it comes to how choices can be made as well as what pupils can make choices about (Elvstrand & Lago, 2020). In an earlier study, Hjalmarsson (2013) showed that the staff could experience tension between controlling the activities and offering pupils free choice. This is discussed in an interview study with nine teachers in five SAEC settings that focused on the staff’s view on and interpretation of the concept of spare time in SAEC. Her results indicated that planned and organized activities in relation to pupils’ influence and opportunities to choose activities led to a recurring dilemma in the context of SAEC. There seems

to be a paradox in that not offering children organised activities may be interpreted as childminding, while at the same time the LtTs [SAEC teachers] emphasize the importance of letting the pupils choose in which activities they wish to be involved in. (Hjalmarsson, 2013, p. 86)

Several studies show that both pupils and teachers in SAEC agree that pupils should not only be offered activities but that they should also be able to freely choose what to do at the SAEC (Hjalmarsson, 2013; Lago & Elvstrand, 2019a; Ljusberg, 2018). However, this only seems to consider pupils’ possibility to choose how, with what, and with whom to play during ‘free play’ (Andishmand, 2017; Haglund, 2015; Holmberg, 2018; Lager, 2015; Ljusberg, 2018) and not to have the opportunity to influence the content in the staff-planned activities. The issue in the present study deals with how, before planning the activities, staff turn to the pupils to investigate what interests they have and what they want to do in SAEC both in short and the long term. With regard to the activities, the children’s freedom of choice seems to be to choose between activities planned by the staff, (see, for example, Haglund, 2015) and not to have the opportunity to influence the content of the activity itself. A study of assessment practices in SAEC concerned the question from another input and claims that staff identify pupil’s needs based either on developmental psychology or ‘society’s need for democratic citizens’ (Andersson, 2013, p. 37). Andersson argues that these practices are ‘relatively unarticulated and not reflected upon’ (p. 139). The research also describes how lack of resources and suitable premises have apparently limited and restricted SAEC’s traditional offering of pedagogical and stimulating activities based on pupils’ experiences, needs, and initiatives.

If we assume that basing an educational programme on pupils’ interests deals with pupils having an influence on their SAEC time and that, as a pupil, they can participate in decision making and shape their time at SAEC based on their own interests, this means that research on influence and co-determination and pupils’ views on being a pupil in SAEC is also of interest here. Earlier studies (Elvstrand & Närvänen, 2016; Haglund, 2015; Klerfelt & Haglund, 2014) showed that staff plan for group-oriented activities and set the framework for the afternoon in terms of rules, space, and time, while the pupils in free play decide the social contexts and friends as well as the content of the activity. For example, the pupils in Elvstrand and Närvänen (2016) study stated that the adults decide the rules and routines, and they illustrated this by saying that they could not always choose to be outside or inside or when they should have snacks or should gather together as a group.

Haglund (2015) argues that pupils do not ask for influence, and teachers do not ask for pupils’ views on the activities that the teachers plan. According to Haglund (2015), the teachers in his study based the educational programme on the pupils’ needs ‘without these activities being anchored or discussed with the pupils’ (Haglund, 2015, p. 1566). On the other hand, he argues that ‘free play’ is based on the pupils’ perspective and that the teachers try to understand and get close to the pupils’ views by giving them the opportunity to have influence. Research shows that there are a number of different contexts in the SAEC where pupils have influence on the educational programme (Elvstrand & Närvänen, , 2016; Haglund, 2015; Holmberg, 2017; Klerfelt & Haglund, 2014). A study of how staff in Swedish SAEC interpret and understand what can be meant by pupils’ participation shows three interpretation repertoires for participation (Närvänen & Elvstrand, 2015). These are (1) ‘formal democracy’, which involves pupils participating in various organized arenas such as SAEC councils where pupils vote for majority decisions, (2) ‘the ability of the individual child to make individual choices’, and (3) ‘the ability to take responsibility’, which is described as both participation and as a condition for participation (Närvänen & Elvstrand, 2015, p. 74). Responsibility was discussed in terms of pupils’ ‘willingness to perform tasks, instruct and help other children, participate in school-age educare council, and behave according to expectations and rules in school-age educare. The basic idea was that participation (influence, making decisions, representing a collective) is responsibility’ (Närvänen & Elvstrand, 2015, p. 74). The first category in Närvänen and Elvstrand’s (2015) study, the SAEC council, is a common way for pupils to influence the education programme in Swedish SAEC. Here pupils are offered the opportunity to make their voices heard – to participate and decide – while at the same time they practice democratic principles. When Elvstrand and Närvänen (2016) studied pupils’ own perspectives on participation in Swedish SAEC, the pupils talked about opportunities to participate in both informal and more formal decisions. When taking part in informal decisions, opportunities to make individual choices according to their own preferences were central (Elvstrand & Närvänen, 2016). When taking part in formal decisions, actions as votes, writing suggestions for the suggestion box, and decisions made in the SAEC council where both pupils and staff were represented were central. When Holmberg (2017) studied SAEC councils, she described them as ‘formalised situations in which pupils may exert influence under structured forms’ (Holmberg, 2017, pp. 29–30). She points out aspects of pupils’ participation in SAEC and shows that the staff thinks that the council must clearly relate to the governing documents’ goals and that the results must be shown through documentation (Holmberg, 2017). Furthermore, Holmberg (2017) study shows that the pupils’ perspectives are utilized and addressed in different ways, even if not always in the foreground. Elvstrands and Närvänens study (2016) shows that pupils point out another side of deciding and making choices in their free time. The children in their study emphasized that it is important not to be forced to carry out different activities. ) .

Previous research referred to above seems to indicate tensions as well as contradictions. First, there are tensions between planning the education programme from a children’s perspective or from a child’s perspective compared with a staff perspective. Second, there are contradictions between staff believing that it is important to allow pupils to have influence and free choice in SAEC and the pupils not always perceiving that they are heard or have free choice.

Theoretical perspective

Childhood studies (James et al., 2015) was used to understand and analyse staff's work to base the educational programme on pupils’ interests. The way this study understands ‘making an inventory of pupils’ interests’ assumes that the pupils themselves can formulate what they are interested in and want to do (Alanen, 2011; James, 2011; Jenks, 2005; Kehily, 2009; Mayall, 2008; Prout & James, 2015). Childhood is seen as a structural form, created relationally by its actors in a historical, social, cultural, and discursive practice (James et al., 2015), in this case, Swedish SAEC in 2020. Childhood is seen as ‘both constantly changing and a permanent structural form’ (Qvortrup, 2011, p. 26), within which pupils in this example of SAEC spend their personal childhood. Pupil’s at SAEC are here seen as actors that do everyday life, and together with staff they do the SAEC (Halldén, 2007). When planning the educational programme in SAEC, based on inventories of children’s interests, the talk about power and the right of interpretation is important. Embedded in the staff’s understanding of childhood in SAEC, there is a hierarchy between staff and pupils. The relationship between childhood and adulthood is referred to as a ‘generational order’, and generational order and childhood are seen as social constructions (Alanen, 2011; Halldén, 2003; James et al., 2015; Krekula, Närvänen, & Näsman, 2005). The staff has a curriculum to relate to as part of their employment, and they are responsible for the pupils, but it is not clear what is meant when it is said that the educational programme should be based on pupils’ interests, experiences, and initiatives. There can be different tensions when the staff bases their work on the pupils’ interests because the generational order is not symmetrical (Alanen, 1992; Honig, 2011; Mayall, 2008). The educational programme is linked to the staff’s view of children as playing a part in determining what impact they can have at SAEC (Ljusberg, 2013) and whether the children are regarded as objects to whom the staff want to provide a meaningful leisure time or as subjects and co-actors together with whom they create a meaningful leisure time (Ljusberg, 2009). Bergnehr (2019) argues, for example, that when it comes to research with children, one way to avoid positioning children as passive is that they are considered as co-actors. Another tool of analysis will be perspective. When pupils give their own views on what interests they have it is called ‘children’s perspective’, while ‘child perspective’ signifies adults’ views of children and their circumstances and what they need (Halldén, 2003; Ljusberg, 2009), and when the staff takes their own perspective it is called adult or staff perspective. Hence, generational order, view of children, and perspective are important analytical tools derived from childhood studies.

Method

The data used in this study were produced at the beginning of a three-year action research project. Action research is considered an iterative research design involving cycles of planning, action, and reflection (Coghlan, 2019). This means that ‘action research is not itself a research method but an approach to research in practice’ (Gelling & Munn-Giddings, 2011, p. 103). From a Nordic educational perspective, action research has been defined as:

A reciprocal challenging of professional knowledge and experiences, rooted in everyday practices within schools, in collaborative arenas populated by researchers and practitioners, and in the interchange of knowledge of different kinds. (Rönnerman, Salo, & Moxsnes Furu, 2008, p. 277)

Action research is considered a collaborative project with the participants where researchers take the role of facilitators that ‘challenge their [teachers] customary means of professional action’ (Rönnerman & Salo, 2012, p. 7). The SAEC staff have continuously been involved in discussing the initial analysis and have also read and commented on the final draft of this article.

The research project was initiated by principals from two schools in different socio-economic urban areas that were interested in development work in SAEC. Each school had approximately 12 staff members, with an even distribution between the sexes, working in four different SAEC settings in each school (eight teams) that were all engaged in the project. One of the staff members participated in the conversations during the meetings but did not want to have her/his comments analyzed. We solved this by not having their parts of the audio-recorded material transcribed, and the field notes did document what they said. The project was funded by the local authority.

The first semester of the project started and ended with a meeting where staff from both SAEC schools were present, and during the semester, three meetings were held in each of the schools once a month. These meetings lasted for two hours. The initial meeting focused on exploring the concepts of pupils’ interests and needs. Each of the subsequent meetings consisted of staff presenting and discussing their observations of and documentation of their everyday practice of both formally- and informally-made inventories of pupils’ interests and needs. The meetings were guided by input from one of the researchers who initiated a collaborative inquiry in the form of dialogue (Brydon-Miller & Coghlan, 2019, p. 309). The staff and researcher worked on questions such as: What is an interest what do we do when we inventory pupils’ interest? Why do we do what we do? Do we do what we think we do? How and what can we document to learn more about and be able to reflect on our current inventory practice?

The analysis was based on approximately 16 hours of transcribed audio recordings and from the six meetings held from September 2018 until January 2019.

Ethical considerations

The Swedish Research Council (2017) ethical considerations information, consent, confidentiality, and use of data were followed. Ethical considerations are based on the values that guide our choices in the practical actions of our research (Brydon-Miller & Coghlan, 2019). An action research project is informed by:

… the key ethical principles of respect for persons, beneficence, and justice, as embodied in the shared values of action research — participation in democratic processes, the improvement of human life, and engagement in morally committed action. (Brydon-Miller, 2008, p. 209)

The key ethical dilemma was ‘how to protect the rights of all parties involved while conducting research for change’ (Kuriloff, Andrus, & Ravitch, 2011, p. 49). This centred around how a management-led initiative for all staff in SAEC could at the same time be a voluntary research project. We resolved this by having the research project be completely independent of the staff’s employers, and no information about who participated reached the school’s management. Those who did not wish to participate did not have their parts of the audio-recorded material transcribed, and the field notes did not record what they said. Participants were informed that they could refuse to participate in the research and could cancel their participation at any time. They did not have to answer questions or participate in discussions if they did not want to, and they did not need to give any reason for why they did not want to. Participants could at any time ask the researcher responsible for the audio recording and note taking to leave the room and/or turn off the recording device. Only one of the participants declined to participate, which meant that the person’s statements were deleted.

The research project did not collect information about the pupils or their guardians, and only the methods by which one can account for the interests of pupils were the research object in the project. Data collected or produced by the staff by means of interviews or surveys with the pupils were not included in the research material and were retained by the SAEC staff and their informants. Regarding confidentiality, different strategies, such as changing participants’ names, are used to protect participants from being recognized in the texts we write and, in the presentations, we give. Finally, the research material will not be shared with anyone who is not connected to the project, and all material is stored in an anti-theft safe based on the rules for research formulated by the Swedish Research Council (2017).

During the first semester of the research, the staff in the eight different teams of the two schools’ SAEC settings explored how they find out about the pupils’ interests before planning the educational programme. The different ways the staff used to find out about pupils’ interests are called inventories in this study. To make an inventory means, in this case, that before planning the educational programme the staff turn to the pupils to explore what interests they have and what they want to do in the SAEC. The staff describes that they use systematic ways to find out how they can plan teaching based on pupils’ interests. When analyzing the data, thematic analysis was used (Braun & Clarke, 2006). In phase one, the transcripts and field notes were carefully read. In phase two, different inventory methods were coded. In the next phase, attempts were made to construct themes. In phase four, the work continued, reviewing potential themes for inventories used by staff in SAEC but also considering whether there were different obstacles for staff when planning the educational programme based on the interests of the pupils. When the different inventories were divided into different themes, the material was read through to see if any theme was missed. Subsequently, the results were divided into three different themes, as shown in the results. The staff statements are enclosed in quotation marks.

Results

Although the project was about finding out the pupils’ interests, this was not always what the staff did. There was a difference due to the generational order, view of children, and various perspectives. The results are presented under three themes: Interest inventory based on the pupil as a co-actor, Interest inventory based on the pupil as an object, and Interest inventory based on staff’s own interests.

Interest inventory based on the pupil as a co-actor

The material contains narratives about different inventories made from children’s perspectives, here divided into the everyday inventory and special occasions for inventories. The staff used a children’s perspective in the everyday inventory based on informed and confirmed expressions. This means that the staff informed themselves about the pupils’ interests, and the pupils had the opportunity to tell their interests either verbally or in other forms such as writing.

In the everyday inventory, the pupils and staff had a dialogue with the intent to find out what the pupils were interested in. The staff addressed the pupils as co-actors, and the dialogue had a direction and a goal to inform the staff about the pupils’ interests. The staff did not guess what the pupils were interested in. Instead they asked and listened to the pupils’ own answers. The staff said that they talked, listened to, and asked the pupils questions about their daily life, or as one of the teachers puts it,

Just ask what they want to do, every day/ … /all this has made us create better relationships with the pupils, that we have listened more and tried to ask and they have come up with ideas and that they really understood that we have listened and we did it all the time but that you just stop and have questions, how do you think, what do you mean, what do you need, what do you feel so they have felt that we take it seriously.

Things that the pupils were asked to do were, for example, crafts, baking, going on excursions, and playing indoors or outdoors. Everyday inventories could be discussed under a specific agenda item at weekly staff meetings and could be used as a starting point for planning the educational programme, but they could also be part of the traditional way of working at SAEC, where the pupils themselves take the initiative to do what they want to do. There were also everyday inventories with an intention to find out what the pupils were interested in, and staff also arranged special occasions for inventories.

One kind of special occasion inventory using children’s perspectives to find out what the pupils individually and in groups were interested in and wanted to do was SAEC councils. According to the staff, the pupils here could tell and discuss together with them what interests they had and what they wanted to do, as well as what they wanted the staff to buy for the SAEC (for example, board games, art materials, or outdoor toys/equipment).

We have SAEC councils … where pupils get to come up with concrete ideas of what we can do in SAEC and what they think is bad, that we can develop to make their SAEC-time more meaningful for them/ … /We have also SAEC councils, we pull notes from the suggestions box and then we talk about it and they can also tell us what they want to do and we discuss it.

Another special occasion inventory was interviews, and the staff considered that it was not enough to ask questions directly to the pupils but that the way of asking questions can also guide the answers. Thus, the staff conducted semi-structured interviews with the pupils, either individually or in groups, and the pupils were asked to choose for themselves with the aim of finding out what the pupils were interested in. Inventories of the pupils’ interests also included the pupils writing down or checking boxes for what they were interested in. For example, an inventory to identify pupils’ interests included activities carried out at the beginning of the semester after the summer (but also at other times), especially with the six-year-olds in the pre-school class. These included a ‘This is me week’ where pupils filled in templates with pictures – or paint pictures - about what they were interested in. ‘Here is a picture of what it looks like, done maybe a couple of times a semester, so they can write, tick what activity they want’. Another similar inventory was ‘a suggestion box where the pupils could put notes’. Here they could write down what they were interested in doing, and they could do so anonymously. The staff then regularly organized meetings and gatherings with the pupils where they read the notes and wrote them on a board. They discussed the notes by asking questions about what could be realized and explained why some activities could not be carried out and negotiated what could be done instead. This reasoning indicates a staff perspective and is addressed in the discussion. A variation of a suggestion box was a survey based on seasonal activity options. An example of how this was carried out was to arrange an election. The first year of the project was an election year in Sweden, and the SAEC teachers arranged a room that looked something like an ‘election hall’ with booths where the pupils had to fill in ballot papers – about what interested them – and then placed them in a ballot box.

There are several ways to inventory pupils’ interests based on children’s perspective, but when analysing the transcriptions, it turned out that when the staff described what they did to find out the pupils’ interests, they did not always turn to the pupils as co-actors. In the next theme, interest inventories from a child perspective are presented.

Interest inventory based on the pupil as an object

The staff used a form of inventory that at first seemed similar to the one described above but which in the analysis showed a difference that manifested itself in a shift from children’s perspective to a child’s perspective. An inventory from a child’s perspective is based on an informed assumption, which means that the staff have observed and listened with intent and registered what they interpret/assume is the pupils’ interests but without asking the pupils directly. This means that it may be the pupils’ interest, but the uncertainty is greater than if the assumption is confirmed and thus is no longer a guess. Observing with intent is about taking an active everyday interest in and directing the gaze on the pupils and what they are interested in. One of the teachers puts it this way: ‘When they [the pupils] come in the morning, during lessons, at break, at lunch, at snacks, or on excursions’. Things the teacher observed was what pupils were engaging in, for example, by playing and what was currently popular in terms of popular culture (YouTube, games, television shows, and apps), including things such as the Eurovision Song Contest or television programmes such as the annual Christmas calendar. The staff also see what pupils bring with them to school and what they draw or build. To communicate is not just about speaking and writing, and the staff said that part of the work in SAEC is to interpret what pupils feel, as one teacher expressed it: ‘You can look at their bodies and see when they think something is really fun’. When the staff, see the pupils as co-actors, they have to talk to them and ask them to confirm their assumptions about what interests them, and then a child’s perspective turns into children’s perspective. Inventories from a child’s perspective are based on an informed but not confirmed assumption, and the staff do not ask – or talk with – the pupils about their interests, and the pupils are seen as objects for the planning. If we assume that the generational order is about power (Alanen, 1992; Honig, 2011; Mayall, 2008), it becomes interesting to reflect upon whether the interpretation is based on children’s perspective, a child’s perspective, or a staff perspective as in the next theme.

Interest inventory – based on staff planning from their own interests

The last theme is called Interest inventory based on staff planning from their own interests. The staff did not always plan the educational programme from the children’s perspective or from the child’s perspective but from their own. This theme is here divided into two sub-themes Staff’s assumptions and interests and Interest as the norm.

Staff’s assumptions and interests

The analysis showed that the staff, when – during our meetings – they reflected on how they perform inventories to know what is of interest for the pupils, discovered that they do not always create inventories from the children’s perspective or from a child’s perspective, even if it was their intention to do so. This result points to children’s subordinate position in SAEC (Alanen, 1992; Honig, 2011; Mayall, 2008). The staff reflected that sometimes it is just assumptions about or their own interpretations of what the pupils are interested in: ‘I assumed they have the same interests as I had when I was a child’. In addition, what activities the staff plan can be what interests themselves, which has led to new questions in the teams like: ‘Now I have to ask myself what is my interest and what is the pupils’ interest’. The staff became more attentive to what came to the fore when they made inventories of pupils’ interests. They started to explore how they more informally picked up on interests and what they did with the information they acquired.

The staff’s work led to discussions about their assumptions, generational order, and their view on children and childhood. They also engaged in critical analyses of the assumptions about what kinds of interests, in their opinion, might be considered ‘good’ – and therefore good for the pupils and because of this used to develop the educational programme – and what kind of interests might be considered less so and therefore ignored.

Interest as the norm

Using children’s perspectives to analyse the staff’s perceptions showed interesting questions around interests as the norm. The staff asked themselves, for example, why they did not see running in the corridors as an interest but rather as misbehaviour. In their reasoning, it became clear how a staff perspective can condition a child’s perspective (Ljusberg, 2009). It is not the intention here to contradict the staff’s positions, the reason is to raise and show the issue. The staff discussed how to deal with interests that were, in their view, in conflict with the value base of the curricula, such as an interest in playing with weapons. The staff felt that it was not a viable way to pretend that this did not happen or to prohibit pupils from playing with pretend weapons. At another time, the pupils had wanted to go sledding on icy hills, but they had no helmets – which are mandatory. Then the staff felt they had to say no. This led to a discussion about pupils’ rights to test their boundaries. A similar discussion arose when the staff talked about pupils wanting to play certain computer games, but the staff had to say no because the pupils were not old enough. Another example that the staff found challenging was when the pupils kept playing or doing the same thing. The staff felt they wanted to challenge them to do something else. This shows that there are norms around ‘good’ or ‘bad’ interests in SAEC that are important to pay attention to in work to offer pupils and staff more opportunities for reflection on what enables and hinders the inventory of pupils’ interests. The transcriptions did not contain any occasion where the staff said that they turned to the pupils to hear their views on the various topics discussed under this theme, which indicates that when it comes to interest as a norm, the pupils are seen as objects of the educational programme.

Discussion

The interest of this research was directed towards which different forms of descriptions of inventories that could be found in the teachers’ talk about their preparations for planning the educational programme in the SAEC … before planning the educational programme and what different perspectives are then used. This study shows several different inventories but also similar tensions, as reported in previous studies. Tensions between planning the educational programme from a children’s perspective or from a child perspective alternate with a staff perspective and staff believing that it is important to allow pupils to have influence in SAEC but then not always realizing the possibility. The results will be discussed under three main themes.

Interest inventory based on pupils as co-actors – planning with the pupils

When the staff view the pupils as co-actors, the inventory is based on informed and confirmed assumptions and not on guesses. Some forms of inventories from children’s perspective are part of everyday life at SAEC, such as staff having mutual dialogues with intent with the pupils. Others are special occasion inventories divided into verbal and written inventories. Two common inventories shown in earlier research are SAEC councils and suggestion boxes (Elvstrand & Närvänen, 2016). The SAEC council is a planned for and structured inventory where pupils are offered the opportunity to make their voices heard – to participate and make decisions – while at the same time experiencing and learning about democratic principles in practice (Holmberg, 2017; Närvänen & Elvstrand, 2015). The present study focuses on inventories and not on how they are followed up, which means that it may be possible that, like Holmberg (2017) shows, the educational programme may not be based on the results of the inventories. The data do not show if the children’s perspective remains in the foreground. But there are indications that they are not always in the foreground, that is, when the staff say that they discussed the notes in the suggestion-box by asking questions about what could be done and explained why some things could not be done and negotiated what could be done instead. This points to children’s subordinate position in SAEC (Alanen, 1992; Honig, 2011; Mayall, 2008) as discussed in the next section.

Interest inventory based on the pupil as an object – planning for the pupils

To plan with a child’s perspective is part of everyday life at SAEC and is based on an informed but not confirmed assumption, which means that the staff have observed and listened with intent and registered what they interpret are the pupils’ interests, but they have not asked for the pupils’ confirmation. This shows that the staff plan for the pupils as objects for the planning. Haglund (2015) shows that the staff do not discuss the activities with the pupils. Other studies show, that except for free play, educational programmes planned by staff often come to be based on staffs’ own interpretation or understanding of pupils’ interests (Andishmand, 2017; Elvstrand & Närvänen, 2016; Holmberg, 2018; Klerfelt & Haglund, 2014; Lago & Elvstrand, 2019b; Ljusberg, 2018). The present study confirms that the educational programme can take a starting point in a child perspective, that is, the staff’s own interpretation or understanding of the pupils’ interests. The staff do not always see the pupils as co-actors and do not always use children’s perspectives but a child’s perspective. Hjalmarsson (2013) has shown that the staff can experience tension between controlling the activities and offering pupils free choice. The present study shows, just as Elvstrand and Lago (2020) noticed tensions between the staff’s traditional way of working and the demands they perceive from the new part of the curriculum. Like Elvstrand and Lago (2020), this study shows tensions in that teachers see the pupils’ choices as important but that their opportunities to choose are limited.

Interest inventories based on staff’s own interests – planning without the pupils in mind

The analysis shows that the staff do not always take a children’s perspective or a child perspective, even if this was their intention. The educational programme is then based on uninformed assumptions and starts in the staff’s perspective. In Haglund’s (2015) study, the pupils did not ask for influence, and teachers did not ask for pupils’ views on the activities that the teachers planned. These results are related to power relations showing that pupils in SAEC are not always listened to (Holmberg, 2018). ). The results presented in this section challenge the task of starting from the interests of children. Some staff do not only see the children as an object for the educational programme but also showed a total disinterest in asking for their interest and said that they took it for granted that children were interested in the same things as they were when they were children. This is an important result showing children’s subordinate position in SAEC (Alanen, 1992; Honig, 2011; Mayall, 2008). The analysis of the transcriptions also shows that there are norms around ‘good’ and ‘bad’ interests in SAEC that govern which interests are allowed but does not show any occasion where the staff said that they turned to the pupils to hear their views on the various topics discussed under this theme. This indicates that when it comes to interest as a norm, the pupils are seen as objects of the educational programme.

To sum up

This study shows different tensions, it points to a number of inventories where staff view the pupils as co-actors and start from a children’s perspectives when planning the educational programme together with the pupils, but it also shows children’s subordinate position in SAEC when planning the educational programme starts in a child perspective and in inventories starting from a staff perspective. Which perspective the staff starts in – a children’s perspective, a child perspective, or staff perspective – is here linked to generation order (Alanen, 2011; James et al., 2015; Krekula et al., 2005) and a child view regarding if the pupils are viewed as objects to plan for either through inventories starting in staff interest or in unconfirmed assumptions or finally, as subjects and co-actors planning the educational programme together with the staff (Ljusberg, 2009). Thus, there are a number of different ways to make inventories of pupils’ interests, but if the staff are not aware of the difference between children's perspective, child perspective and staff perspective, it may appear that the educational programme seems to be based on pupils’ interests while in reality it is what the staff think are the pupils’ interests or what the staff’s own interests are.

When challenged, staff started to explore how they more informally pick up on interests and what they do with the information they acquire. Their approach to pupils’ interests thus became more inquisitive and less taken for granted, which points to a change in their view of the children as well as a turn from a child’s perspective towards being interested in children’s own perspectives.

The study’s limitations

A shortcoming that will hopefully be remedied in a future research project is observing the situated practice of inventories of children’s interests in SAEC and how the children themselves give meaning to it.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anna-Lena Ljusberg

Anna-Lena Ljusberg, PhD in Child and Youth Studies. Besides being the Head of the Teacher Education Program for School-Age Educare at Stockholm University, my overall research interests concern children´s participation and agency in school and educare contexts. Theoretically in my research, I take a childhood studies as well as a sociocultural theoretical perspective. Methodologically, I have extensive experience in applied action research and ethnographical approaches.