Värdeladdade utvärderingar : en diskursanalys av förskolors systematiska kvalitetsarbete

Sammanfattning: The overarching interest of this licentiate thesis is directed towards values as they are discursively constructed in systematic quality work in preschool. The aim of the study is to contribute with knowledge about the values discursively expressed in systematic quality work in preschool and how these can, in turn, be understood in relation to current quality work contexts. Values, as understood in the study, are assumptions about something good, desirable and worth aiming at and are seen as socially constructed in a specific societal, cultural and historical context. Discourse can be interpreted as a certain way of talking about and understanding values where language represents a specific meaning context.Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis has been applied to critically examine and make visible what values and discourses are expressed in the systematic quality work in preschool, as well as their mutual relations. In addition, Ball’s performativity concept has been used. The empirical material consists of 17 preschools’ documented systematic quality work in the form of evaluations conducted during the 2014-2015 school year.The value practice emerging from the analysis of the evaluations carries a complexity in that values appear to overlap and may thus be hard to separate. Values are both explicitly and implicitly expressed. What is highlighted as desirable can be categorized within five areas: competence, democracy, ethics, disciplination and efficiency.The result shows that a goal rational, a market-oriented, a relational, a morally oriented and a development psychology discourse are included in the order of discourse that exercises power over the values that are expressible and over the way this is done. The analysis clearly demonstrates the predominance of the goal rational discourse, while the influence of the development psychology discourse seems to be limited with regard to what is considered desirable in the organization. It also emerges that there is a power structure where the goal rational and the market-oriented discourses seem to include and articulate the other discourses within the order of discourse.In a long-time perspective, preschool activities appear to have passed from development psychology rationality to goal rationality. For preschool children this transformation may have entailed that currently the strongly emphasized welfare aspect of the organization tends towards a strong emphasis on competence. These values stand out in the evaluations as two opposite poles, which may indicate a swing of the pendulum from one side to the other.