School-age educare for all children?

Argumentative discourses in report responses concerning an education based on equity

Abstract

The Swedish Education Act states that education should be guided by equity in every type of school and in school-age educare (SAEC) wherever it is organised (Education Act 1 Ch. 9 § 2010:800). For that reason, SAECs are seen as part of the elementary school and share the school’s assignment of organising an education that is grounded on equity (The Education Act 2010:800; The Swedish National Agency for Education, 2014). The educational assignment of SAECs has been strengthened in various policy documents since the 1990s. However, during this period the conditions necessary to fulfil the assignment have deteriorated (Andersson, 2020). The Swedish National Agency for Education (2000; 2006; 2008) and the Swedish Schools Inspectorate (2010; 2018) have recurrently reported the need for better preconditions for SAECs, which are seen as vital for creating an SAEC activity that is more in accordance with the intentions of the steering documents. 

In 2020 the Swedish government published an official report called Improved quality and equity in school-age education and pedagogical care (SOU 2020:34). The report suggests that SAECs can contribute equity if children in underprivileged areas are more involved in SAEC activities and if all children are able to participate in them. The report was submitted to 52 different consultive bodies (municipalities, trade unions, universities, organisations etc.), all of which were encouraged to respond to the government and express their views of the content. With the aid of political discourse analysis (Fairclough & Fairclough, 2012) this article strives to analyse the argumentative discourses used and developed by these different authorities in relation to the report on the compensatory assignment of SAECs and the opportunities to contribute to an education based on equity.

Although there is no one common or canonical definition of what equity means, the notion is central in Swedish education history (Englund & Quennerstedt, 2008; von Greiff, 2009). Equity as a notion, together with the school’s assignment as functioning in a compensatory way, can be seen as both ideologically and politically loaded. Equity, as a notion, could be described from three different perspectives: same access to education, same quality of education and that education should be compensatory (The Swedish National Agency for Education, 2018). In this article, the point of departure for understanding the notion of equity is that equity can be achieved if those whose needs are the most significant are also those who are provided for most.

Four argumentative discourses used by the consultive bodies become visible in the analysis: children’s rights, acceptance, economy and need of complements. All these prominent discourses, except for acceptance are double coded (cf. Gewirtz et al., 2004) and recontextualises different sub-discourses (Fairclough & Fairclough, 2012). Both sub-discourses, within children’s rights, are positive towards the report’s conclusions. One sub-discourse supports and highlights both children’s rights and children in underprivileged areas. SAECs’ education is seen as a right for children, and it is argued that children in underprivileged areas should be more involved in SAEC activities. The second sub-discourse only emphasise children’s rights to participate in SAEC. The argumentation directed to children’s rights are, compared to the argumentation for compensating children in underprivileged areas, more common.

The consultive bodies incorporated in the acceptation discourse are overall uncritical towards the report’s conclusions and standpoints. Neither do succinct argumentation concerning why the report’s suggestions are important to SAEC quality and equity exist or if some of the suggestions are more important than others. The acceptation discourse is for that reason interpreted as a discourse that is accepting the report’s intentions and conclusions.

The economy discourse is recontexualised from three sub-discourses: emphasizing governmental economic support, emphasizing general state grants and emphasizing the school’s [sharp] knowledge assignment. The first two mentioned sub-discourses are in general positive to the report’s suggestions, provided that the municipalities obtain economical support from the state for necessary reforms. The emphasizing general state grants discourse are, however, more focused on the importance of the municipalities’ power of the distribution of the economic grants they receive from the state. The consultative bodies within the last sub-discourse, emphasizing the school’s [sharp] knowledge assignment, are however negative since the argumentation emphasize that the school knowledge assignment must be economically prioritized compared to the SAECs assignment dedicated to care and a general pedagogic mission. SAEC is seen as subordinated to school and the SAECs compensatory assignment or opportunity to contribute to equity is not discussed at all.

A polarization appears when the children’s rights and the economy discourses are compared. The polarization leads to a norm collision (Ryffé, 2019) where SAECs, through the economic discourse is subordinated to school and should be divided from school while the children’s rights discourse emphasizes the need to strengthen opportunities to create an education based on equity, with the SAEC being seen as an important component.

The need of complement discourse is polarized in itself, and its argumentation seems to end in a need for more investigations. This means that it’s both sub-discourses originate from opposite lines of argumentations, but coordinates in a joint discourse: the report needs to be complemented using either equity arguments or arguments originating from an economy sub-discourse.

The children’s rights argument emphasises the need to strengthen opportunities to create an education based on equity, with the SAEC being seen as an important. However, some of the consultive bodies mainly describe a reproduction of the present arrangement or that the SAEC should be seen as subordinated to school. All children’s rights to SAEC and an equitable SAEC education have, for that reason, a weak legitimacy at least amongst some of the important consultative bodies. This indicates the SAEC, through a reproduction of current conditions, will keep remain struggling with lacking equity in the future.