För hvem finns planer att motverka kränkningar och diskriminering i förskolan?

The study discusses the ways in which annual plans (and other documents) can support efforts to counteract offensive actions and discrimination in kindergartens.

The research questions are:

1. What type of content is presented in annual plans (and other documents) designed to prevent children from being subjected to offensive actions and discrimination by adults and/or other children in kindergartens, and how does this content relate to the expected content according to the law?
2. How can the content of annual plans (and other documents) be understood in relation to performative governance and fabrication?

The research results show that the plans developed to prevent offences and discrimination in Swedish kindergarten often lack contextual grounding and are characterised by general reproductions of legal texts. The first research question, which investigates what type of content the plans present, revealed that many of them focus on formal requirements rather than concrete, context-specific measures. The second research question, which analyses the plans’ relationship to performative governance, showed that the plans may be designed to demonstrate compliance with external expectations, which can lead to fabrication of the content. This can result in the plans not functioning effectively in practice as tools to protect children from offensive actions and discrimination.

The empirical data consist of 89 documents (annual plans and other documents) from 89 different municipalities in Sweden. The material was collected in the spring of 2019. The study is based on Stephen Ball’s educational policy mindset.

Rantala, A. & Heikkilä, M. (2022). För hvem finns planer att motverka kränkningar och diskriminering i förskolan? Nordic Studies in Education, 42(2), 194–210.