Preschool teachers and caregivers’ lack of repositioning in response to changed responsibilities in policy documents

Abstract

Preschool teachers and caregivers have a close working relationship as part of a working team to benefit the children in Swedish preschools. In 2011, a new educational reform was introduced according to which preschools became a school form in their own right within the overall educational system in Sweden. The objective of the policy was to strengthen the profession of preschool teachers by affording them clearer responsibility over the quality of educational practices and curriculum work. It also entailed a division of labour between the preschool teachers and caregivers in the working team. The current study explored how Swedish preschool teachers and caregivers positioned themselves in response to these changes in responsibility. In this qualitative study, data were collected from 17 preschool teachers and caregivers via an open-ended questionnaire. Preschool teachers and caregivers viewed themselves as having equal responsibility in the working team. Specifically, preschool teachers upgraded the competence and position of caregivers while downgrading their own professional competence and position. Caregivers downgraded the profession and position of preschool teachers and upgraded their own competence and position to be equal to that of preschool teachers.

Teaching and learning in age-homogeneous groups versus mixed-age groups in the preschool – the Swedish example

“…The study was conducted after the implementation of a new preschool curriculum (The Swedish National Agency for Education, 2018), in which the concept of teaching is more clearly emphasised. This change (1) implies that the educated preschool teacher leads all the different professionals working as educators in the preschool (Cervantes & Öqvist, 2021) and ( 2) reflects an ongoing shift to connect the preschool more closely to Sweden's nine-year compulsory school system (Jönsson et al, 2012).…”

Utbildning borde spela roll – om förskollärares uppdrag att leda

“…Fokus ligger oftare på rektors ledarskap i förskolan (t.ex. Riddersporre, 2010a), förskollärares särskilda ansvar (Cervantes & Öqvist, 2021;Eriksson, 2014Eriksson, , 2015Eriksson et al, 2018) och förskollärares didaktiska ledarskap (Catucci, 2021).…”

“…Det har också visat sig finnas liknande utmaningar vad gäller uppdraget att leda. En signifikant anledning till detta är förskolans långa tradition av en platt och omsorgsbaserad organisationskultur, som starkt fokuserar ett demokratiskt förhållningssätt där medarbetarna delar jämlikt på uppgifter och ansvar oavsett utbildning och yrke (Børhaug & Lotsberg, 2014;Catucci, 2021;Cervantes & Öqvist, 2021;Heikka et al, 2016).…”

“…Förutom erfarenhetsdiskursen finns det studier som på olika sätt lyft upp förekomsten av en stark jämlikhetsdiskurs som påverkar arbetsfördelningen (Aasen, 2010;Børhaug & Lotsberg, 2014;Catucci, 2021;Cervantes & Öqvist, 2021;Eriksson et al, 2018;Heikka et al, 2016). I studierna framkommer bl.a.…”

“…på grund av konflikträdsla. Med det som bakgrund har forskarna dragit slutsatsen att förskolans kvalitet kan påverkas till det sämre som följd av den starka jämlikhetsdiskursen (Cervantes & Öqvist, 2021). Denna dominanta jämlikhetsprincip, där personliga relationer, laganda och jämlikhet är centrala aspekter, har medfört en syn på arbetslaget som ett rollkompletterande team som bygger på en "en för alla, alla för en"-princip (Riddersporre, 2010b, s. 220).…”