This study examines the conditions given to teachers in preschool class in order to execute the guarantee for early interventions and mandatory assessmentsof six-year-olds. The reform contributes an imperative policy that is to be interpreted literally to ensure equality. The study involves the analysis of survey responses from 792 teachers in 191 Swedish municipalities. The results reveal three gaps: 1) there is variety in the local preconditions and time spent on the assessments despite the standardization in this imperative policy, 2) the guarantee seems to be integrated into the local institutional culture rather than to be driving change, and 3) the reform seems to have become the teachers’ responsibility to implement within existing resources and timeframes. The conclusion is that the reform and its policy lead to large variation when implemented in local practice.Thus, national equality in education is difficult to achieve, even if the policy is imperative.

The preschool class has been subject to several policy reforms, which principals and local education authorities are responsible. for implementing and evaluating. The aim of this study is to contribute with knowledge about how principals and local education authorities make meaning of the position and organization of the preschool class in relation to these policy reforms and to the existing practices. The method used in the study is interviews with principals and local education authorities and shows how they reason about and relate to various regulatory, normative, and cultural-cognitive elements of governance. The analysis shows that the principals have arguments for three basic positions for the preschool class: a bridge between preschool and primary school, a knowledgeoriented position, and a socially oriented position. A key argument put forward by the principals is that the preschool class should be integrated into a continuous primary school organisation. The local education authorities, on their part, interpret the new policy as an ongoing qualification and homogenization process, which affects the preschool class’s position in the education system.

Det råder konsensus mellan forskare och politiker om att tidiga insatser och reformer, riktade mot de yngre barnen i utbildningssystemet, är bland de viktigaste interventioner som ett samhälle kan vidta. Inriktningen på och konkretisering av de tidiga insatserna problematiseras emellertid sällan i policy. Utvecklingen kan karakteriseras som en pågående skolarisering av utbildning för de yngre barnen, det vill säga ett närmande till grundskolan och ett fjärmande från förskolan. Denna riktning har motiverats av ekonomiska, demokratiska och globala motiv. Syftet med denna essä är att problematisera skolariseringens konsekvenser och diskutera vad som händer då ”mantrat” om tidiga insatser konkretiseras till politiska reformer. Detta görs med exempel hämtade från den svenska förskoleklassen.

This chapter takes a historical lens to ways in which transition to school has been conceptualised over the last 80 years in Sweden. Drawing on an extensive policy analysis, we analyse changing representations of the six-year-old child starting school, depending on how society has handled issues of the image of the child, school maturity, compulsory schooling, and the transition from home or preschool to school. The key idea is that every education system is about creating the person through education. The vision of the educated child is at the core of educational reforms. Historical discursive claims about the characteristics of the child, or the pupil, mirror the educational subject at a certain time and convey meanings of school maturity and transition to school. With this in mind, we analyse how policy documents describe the nature of the child and what the child should become in the educational institution.

In this paper, teachers’ work with the newly introduced assessment of six-year-old children in Sweden is illustrated using the neoinstitutional theory. The results show how teachers are guided by coexisting mix of logics, which are based on different values and lead to different assessment practices. The results show that more assessment implies less teaching, and the policy reform vision, to better support children in continuing education, is at risk of being lost when transformed to pedagogical practice. The formative focus on the assessments is reduced to a technical practice with focus on delivering results. Thus, the neoliberal focus and performativity is prominent.

I denna essä fokuseras åtgärdsgarantin (SOU2016, s. 59) och den kartläggning som ingår ireformen. Syftet med reformen är tvådelad.Dels handlar det om att obligatoriska kartläggningar förväntas bidra till att läraren bättre kananpassa undervisningen till elevernas faktiskakunskapsnivåer och behov. Dels handlar detom tidiga insatser. Om resultaten från kartläggningarna i förskoleklassen visar att någonelev riskerar att inte nå kunskapskraven isvenska, svenska som andraspråk och/ellermatematik i årskurs 3, ska extra stöd sättas inomedelbart. Huvudargumentet är att elevernas kunskapsnivåer behöver öka och att tidigainsatser både är billigare och mer effektiva änsenare (prop. 2017/18, s. 18). Men vad är detsom egentligen mäts i kartläggningen och hurkan kartläggningen bidra till ökat lärande?