Anpassning, kamp och flykt : Hur förskolepersonal handskas med effekter av besparingar och andra förändringar i förskolan

Sammanfattning: This study deals with preschool staff's different ways of coping with the extensive financial cutbacks and restructuring of the preschool system that have taken place during the 90's. The overall aim is to increase the understanding of the various ways in which staff members master their daily work. The study emphasizes the actor perspective, practice based knowledge and teachers as reflecting practitioners who more or less intuitively manage a complex reality. The focus is on collegial reflection. The variation in preschool staff's collegial reflection is illustrated in the terminology of Schön (1983).The research approach is described as ethnographically inspired fieldwork. Participant observation, group interviews, individual interviews and document analysis were carried out in three different preschools during a long period of time. Most of the data was gathered through participant observation of formal and informal meetings. Schön's concepts naming, framing, reframing and problem solving were used in structuring and analyzing the data.The study shows that the problematic situations the staff had to deal with could often be described as "messes" or dilemmas. Recurring problem areas were: Concern over pedagogical quality in general, individual children and their parents, and concern related to parental co-operation and staff members working situation. The staff employed three main kinds of problem solving strategies: Adjustment strategies, resistance or fighting strategies and escape strategies. Adjustment strategies without reframing dominated.Different ways of interpreting the results are discussed in terms of context, rationality and a tension between central "wishes" and local reality. A reason for the lack of reframing can be found in deficient knowledge of necessary prerequisites for collegial reflection and possibilities to create these prerequisites.