Leisure-time centres: social pedagogical tradition in educational practice

Abstract

This article is positioned in the context of a discussion about an increasing focus on quality in education. The aim of the article is to explore discourses enacted in Systematic Quality Work (SQW) in municipalities and leisure-time centres. In Sweden, SQW comes within the statutory obligations of municipals and leisure-time centres and constitutes a significant part of teachers’ work. The article explores how local policy-makers, a principal, and two teachers enact SQW policy and transform it into practice. The findings are discussed as recontextualized discourses, norms, and traditions in the various actors’ enactment of SQW in discursive practices. Educational discourse is recontextualized in the studied municipalities, highlighting the norms according to routines and models of SQW in compulsory schools. When SQW is recontextualized in the leisure-time centre, a social pedagogical discourse that highlights children’s social and relational learning is reproduced.