Systematic Quality Work in Preschool

Nordic Comparative Analysis of Guidelines for Quality and Content in Early Childhood Education

“…Quality is often used in combination with concepts like security, assessment, education, evaluation, accountability and control, but is also presented as an idea and means of creating better conditions for children's lifelong learning (cf Biesta 2011;Dahlberg, Moss & Pence;2001;Haug, 2003;Karila, 2012;Kjørholt & Qvortrup, 2012;Löfdahl & Pérez Prieto, 2010;Sheridan, Williams & Sandberg, 2013;Åsén & Vallberg Roth, 2012). Scholars have called this focus on quality in education the 'Quality Turn'.…”

Production and Products of Preschool Documentation: Entanglements of children, things, and templates

“…Detta skapar en spänning mellan olika sätt att förhålla sig till dokumentation: till exempel mellan att mäta och utvärdera, och att producera aspekter av kvalitet och utveckla praktiker. I denna studie, liksom i vissa tidigare studier, visar det sig att dokumentationens fokus förskjuts från de enskilda barnen mot förskolans verksamhet och praktiker, samt lärares aktivitet (Löfdahl & Pérez Prieto, 2009a;Sheridan et al, 2013). Detta gör också att fokus för det som övervakas förskjuts.…”

“…According to Sheridan, Williams, and Sandberg (2013), there is a lack of know-ledge about how preschool teachers deal with systematic quality work. This problem might also concern how methods, models and templates are involved in preschool documentation practices and what this produces.…”

“…In documentation that focuses on teachers and on the practice, children are in some cases almost unseen. An interview study from an interactionist and ecological perspective found a shift in the focus of documentation from individual children's learning and development to teachers' approaches and their interaction with children (Sheridan et al, 2013). The teachers seemed to focus more on their practice or on their profession than on how children were developing and what they learned.…”

“…Reading the present study though research presented in the subsection titled Undetectable and Unseen produces a pattern of congruence. Those research findings point to documentation as shifting towards preschool practices and teachers' approach and away from individual children's learning and development (Löfdahl & Pérez Prieto, 2009a;Sheridan et al, 2013). A further reading, the section From Child Observation to Documentation, produces the writings in the 1997 preface to the curriculum (since removed), emphasising that individual children's results should not be assessed, as still 'alive and kicking'.…”