Reformimplementering i förskolepraktik

Abstract

This article focuses on how responsibilities and tasks have been allocated between preschool teachers and child-care workers some years after the revision of the Swedish National Education Act and the preschool curriculum in 2010, in which the preschool staffs responsibility was clarified.  The revision intended to strengthen the educational quality in preschool by providing preschool teachers with an increased responsibility for the educational activities carried out by preschool teams. Our overall aim was to investigate whether the revision has led to a redistribution of responsibilities and/or tasks in the everyday preschool practice carried through by preschool teams consisting of preschool teachers and child-care workers. The investigation is grounded through observations of the daily work of four mixed teams and analyses of local documents, field conversations and interviews with the team members and their heads. Due to the results there has been some redistribution of responsibilities and tasks. For instance, all the heads have made organizational changes in order to enable preschool teachers to take greater responsibility for educational activities and their quality, which in turn resulted in a more hierarchical organization. The article discusses the complexity associated with the interpretation and implementation of an educational reform and its effects.