Swedish leisure-time centres were formerly part of Swedish social and family policies but were transferred to an educational context in the 1990s. This transfer was accentuated by both the Education Act of 2010 and the new teacher training established in 2011, which also included education particularly directed for leisure-time centres. The state's intention with this discursive shift was to highlight education and learning within the activity in a more distinct way. This article is based on an ethnography-inspired study at one leisure-time centre called the Sunflower. The data are based on six weeks of field work including participating observations, field notes and walk-andtalk conversations. The study takes its point of departure from representations by staff concerning what they emphasise regarding the centre's activity, how these representations are related to each other and which strategies staff members use when talking about and monitoring the pupils' activities. The results show the strong presence of older traditions concerning values and practices regarding the performance at work: supporting children with good care, stressing the importance of children's free play and using a peripheral subject position during work. The results also show that a stress on the child-to-staff ratio as circumscribing the activity which is enhanced by the pupils misallocated age distribution.
This article highlights the discourses of children and leisure-time pedagogues regarding ways the activity at two different Swedish school-age educare centres are mutually constructed. Two different topics are stressed: children's perspectives and school-age educare centres as a social and educational practice. Data was constructed through walkand-talk conversations supported by photos from a digital camera. The results are described through narratives that depict the children's discourses in their school-age educare activity. The emerging discourses show that children's perspectives are met in several ways but also that their perspectives are, in some respects, ignored. These results have the potential to contribute by helping to make children's voices heard as a tool to change the social practices in school-age educare centres.
In this article a background to the growing need of establishing school-age educare as a field of research in Sweden is presented. Firstly a short review of the history of the school-age educare is given, followed by a description of how the activity is organized today. Some examples of studies produced within this field are presented. Both accomplished studies and ongoing research are given account for. The article concludes with actions suggested for covering existing gaps of research.
Board games are traditionally seen as an important Swedish leisure-time centre activity, but research regarding this activity is sparse. This study aims to fill part of that void through a web survey directed to members in a closed Facebook group focusing on leisure-time centres. Fifty-five informants’ answers were analysed using critical discourse analysis to find why staff at leisure-time centres use board games. The article also discusses the subject positions the staff use when playing board games with the children. The results reveal four prominent discourses, which were termed: supporting social structure, learning social competence, substituting digital games, and learning cognitive abilities. The results also reveal three subject positions while playing board games: developer, supervising judge, and participant. The informants’ discourses regarding their reasons for using board games and the positions the staff settled into while playing board games drew mostly from a social pedagogical arena. However, features that emphasize traditional school related content are also evident.
Artikeln har en narrativ form och baseras på empiri från en etnografiinspirerad studie på ett svenskt fritidshem och fokuserar på hur Ann, den lärare som ansvarar för fritidshemmets verksamhet, försöker att bygga upp och driva verksamheten. Hon, liksom de statliga styrdokument hon försöker att utgå ifrån, har höga ambitioner med verksamheten men de förutsättningar skolan erbjuder för att bedriva kvalitativt hög verksamhet är bristfälliga. Hög personalomsättning i kombination med personal utan utbildning och brister i planeringstiden blir hinder både för Anns ambitionsnivå och fritidshemmets möjligheter att fungera som en plats för utbildning och lärande och på så vis motsvara styrdokumentens skrivningar.
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