Stockholm university
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Eva Kane

About me

Senior lecturer

Section for Child and Youth Studies, School-age Educare.

Teaching

Teaches and is responsible for courses in School-age Educare.

Research

Doctoral Projekt

Playing practices in school-age childcare:: An action research project in Sweden and England

Research projects

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • Den tacksamma leken

    2020. Linnéa Holmberg, Eva Kane. Pedagogisk forskning i Sverige 25 (2-3), 92-113

    Article

    Lek har länge varit, och är fortfarande, en central aspekt i fritidshemmets verksamhet. Barns lekande framstår i sammanhanget som något oantastligt och som otacksamt att kritisera. Med en diskursanalytisk ansats belyser artikeln hur talet om lek i utbildningspolitiska styr- och policydokument legitimerar en viss skildring av samtidens fritidshem och undersöker hur forskning om fritidshem använder begreppet lek. Analysen belyser hur det vetenskapliga talet om lek på ett alltför oproblematiserat sätt reproducerar begreppsanvändningen som har påvisats i fritidshemmens verksamhet genom tidigare empiriska studier. I denna reproduktion används tal om lek för att iscensätta olika element i fritidshemsverksamhet på sätt som passar såväl traditionella fritidshemsideal som rådande utbildningspolitiska idéer. Framträdande i detta är den allsidiga funktion i talet om lek som används för att legitimera andra företeelser, exempelvis lärande och professionalism. Det tacksamma begreppet lek möjliggör därigenom vetenskapliga skildringar av fritidshemmet som den institution utbildningspolitiska intressen efterfrågar idag. Tal om lek – en diskursiv universallösning användbar till det mesta.

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  • Swedish school-age educare

    2019. Anna Klerfelt (et al.). International Developments in Research on Extended Education, 173-192

    Chapter

    In this chapter we aim to describe the Swedish school-age educare from a cultural and historical perspective and we hope to give the reader an informative picture of how Swedish school-age educare is organised and put into practice followed by critical reflections. This will be done by describing purposes, origins, policies, and impacts (methods) of extended education performed both in the school-age educare centres as a part of the public educational system and in recreational activities provided outside the educational system run as community-programmes. Schools and school-age educare centres are integrated and can be managed as public or independent schools. The independent schools could be owned and run by parents, private companies or organisations, but both public and independent schools are financed by taxes. School-age educare centres are chosen, both by politicians and parents, as the most preferred provision for children aged 6-12 years which means that governmental resources, political discussions, and research are directed toward this way of organising extended education.

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  • Assessing the needs and interests of pupils in school age educare

    2019. Eva Kane, Anna-Lena Ljusberg. Abstract book, 520-521

    Conference

    At a time when educational assessment drives school development in all Nordic countries, it is a challenge to work in school-age educare, where the development of local service should be driven by the needs and interests of the pupils (SNEA, 2018). Our action research project aims to explore this specific part of school-age educare practice together with staff in two urban schools in different socio-economic areas. While there are studies about assessment (Andersson, 2013) and systematic development work (Lager, 2016) that will inform this study, there is no other research about school-age educare that focuses on this particular aspect of school-age educare. Research in preschools suggests that staff develop the service based on their own interests rather than the children’s (Fast, 2007). Moberg (2018, p.122) explores ”how the concept ofchildren’s interestsis allowed to act through its relations to other actors” and thus “what gets to count as children’s interests” (p.123) suggests that we try and trace the concept in practice. The project attempts to map methods already in use as well as explore possible new methods to assess pupils’ needs and interests. We want to discuss whose perspective the practice opens up for and what view of the child the practice allows. The project hopes to activate discussions about what pupils are allowed to do and be or how they should behave in school-age educare. We also want to avoid fixed categorisations of children, since how children are discussed limits or allows for change in different ways (Holmberg, 2017).

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  • Using action research to explore play facilitation in school-based school-age childcare settings

    2017. Eva Kane. Researching Play from a Playwork Perspective, 109-122

    Chapter

    This chapter explores why action research is an appropriate research method when studying how school-age childcare staff facilitate play. It furthermore argues that this is research from a playwork perspective. Action research is a practice-changing practice, balancing research, participation and action. The Playwork Principles argues that play is a process controlled by the players, and in a similar way action research argues that the issues explored must originate from practitioners. The process of change described in this chapter was negotiated and agreed between the practitioners and the researcher. The Playwork Principles equally argues that playworkers work to the child’s agenda which suggests a critical view of power and social position. The action research project explored was inspired by critical theory which also allowed for play as a concept to be more than, for example, learning. The research presented attempted to retain multiple perspectives and the complexity of both play and school-age childcare staff’s practice.

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  • Playing practices in school-age childcare:

    2015. Eva Kane (et al.).

    Thesis (Doc)

    Playing is a common part of children’s leisure time, and with children spending an increasing amount of this time in school-age childcare, in both Sweden and England, staff have the responsibility to facilitate play. The way play is conceptualised by staff may lead to different aspects of play being facilitated. These play practices are enabled and constrained by the arrangements of what this dissertation calls the school’s play practice architecture, i.e. where play practices are intertwined with a school’s practice architecture. The aim of the research was to explore how staff talked about play and how to facilitate it, how concepts of play contributed to different play practices and how it might be possible to transform play practice architectures. The research draws on conversations with staff in school-age childcare settings in two Swedish and one English school during an action research project. Just as action research was used to disturb and change practice in order to understand it, concepts from Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy (1980/2004) were put to work to disturb taken-for-granted concepts of play in order to explore how play works.

    Article I explores what the staff talked about in relation to play and its facilitation. The conclusion is that the ability of staff to interpret children’s play as children exploring their agency is crucial when facilitating play in a learning institution. Article II examines some discursive orders about play in school-age childcare and goes beyond them by conceptualising playing as becoming-different. The article argues that when foregrounding play, staff recognised children and themselves as becoming-players. Article III investigates how to think practice as constant change. For any practice, planning is required, and yet the unexpected keeps happening. When playing was conceptualised as a “What If? As If” approach, which allowed for potentialities to become actualised, then this approach was also useful as an approach in practice. The analysis suggests that when engaging in a playing practice, practitioners develop new knowledge and simultaneously change social situations.

    The practice of playing, whether intentional or unintentional, can not only disturb but also transform play practice architectures. The practice of playing is sensitised to the disturbances caused by playing and also puts itself “in play”. This opens up for a continuous de- and reterritorialisation of play and playing in school-age childcare practice.

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  • ‘What If? As If’

    2015. Eva Kane. Educational action research 23 (3), 350-365

    Article

    When doing research, or for that matter working in school-age childcare, the researcher/teacher is required to develop a plan for her/his work in spite of knowing that unexpected things will happen. This article aims to explore the relationship between the process of planning and unexpected events in childcare practice and action research. The article uses transcripts of discussions from a collaborative action research project focusing on playing in school-age childcare to explore this relationship. The article attempts to go beyond dualisms to understand playing as a way to disturb existing practices. In conjunction with specified transcripts from ongoing research, this is done by folding together concepts inspired by Deleuze and Guattari such as becoming-different with concepts from play theory and action research. The article argues that there may be such a thing as a ‘What If? As If’ approach to practice, according to which collaborators are playing to change social situations and develop new knowledge. Being alert to invitations to playing allows the process of planning to continuously become-different.

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  • Becoming-player in school-age childcare

    2014. Eva Kane, Pat Petrie. Reconceptualizing Educational Research Methodology (RERM) 5 (1), 18-31

    Article

    The aim of this paper is to explore if some of Deleuze and Guattari’s (1980/2004) concepts can contribute to our understanding of “playwork”, particularly among the school-age childcare staff required by governing documents to facilitate play in a school setting. The paper presents a reading of transcribed conversations with school-age childcare staff. We map how two staff teams described playing, and the (e)merging thoughts that surfaced during conversations. The reading challenges a dichotomous view of staff as play facilitators and children as players and we explore other possibilities for interpreting the events described by staff. It seems to us that when children and staff play, in the assemblage of the school-age childcare settings, they do schooling and playing simultaneously, overcoming the dichotomies apparent in educational policy.

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  • Making Magic Soup - The facilitation of play in school-age childcare

    2013. Eva Kane, Anna-Lena Ljusberg, Håkan Larsson. International Journal of Play 2 (1), 7-21

    Article

    This paper explores socially shared knowledge of facilitating play in a learning institution such as a school-age childcare setting (services provided for children outside school hours, often while parents are at work). Previous research makes it clear that the area of play facilitation needs further exploration. It points to a tension between children's agency in play and the constraints of the setting. The pedagogical traditions of Froebel and Dewey have been used to explore the options for action in this field of tension. Staff from four school-age childcare settings – three Swedish and one English – took part in focus groups. The transcriptions of the spoken dialogue were categorised using dialogic analysis. The paper presents samples of conversations highlighting the above tensions and analyses them in the light of the theory. The findings show that staff negotiated these tensions daily and that the developed model can be used to reflect on the intentions and approaches of a service that only partly facilitates play. The conclusion is that the ability of staff to interpret children's play as children exploring their agency is crucial when facilitating play in a learning institution.

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