Abstract
In recent years in Sweden, preschools in so-called ‘particularly vulnerable areas’ close to large cities have experienced several crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath, shootings and car fires due to gang violence in the vicinity. Leading and maintaining the preschool as a safe place for the children in its care in a crisis has become an important part of the preschool manager’s leadership role in vulnerable areas. With the support of Judith Butler’s philosophical thinking, the aim of this article is to investigate how precarity is folded into preschool managers’ everyday work in these areas when handling social crises or a sudden emergency. The article draws on Butler’s writings about precarity, characterized by a simultaneous maintenance of and resistance to social norms and strong power structures, as well as how this social condition can be understood in relation to preschool managers’ leadership in crisis situations. The empirical material consists of interviews with preschool managers working in preschools located in particularly vulnerable areas in Sweden. The article concludes that crisis preparedness includes social engagement with staff, children and their families. Precarity and vulnerability can be understood as part of the preschool manager’s daily work, sometimes as a prerequisite for cooperation, establishing relations and mutual exchange with other people in vulnerable situations.
Introduction
I am never afraid, but as a preschool manager I always need to be updated about what happens around the preschool. If a threatening incident take place in the preschool playground, I am ultimately responsible for the children’s safety. It is complicated, but that is also what makes our work so important. (Interview with preschool manager Alice)
In Sweden, crises like the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath, shootings and car fires due to gang violence affect communities and require different types of societal preparedness (Holst, 2023). The above quotation shows that the new security model in Sweden has affected the role of a preschool manager. As Alice expresses it, both her working situation and leadership of the preschool have changed recently and require her to be constantly vigilant about what is happening near the preschools that she is responsible for. It is her responsibility to ensure that the preschool is a safe place for the children, staff and caregivers. This is a huge assignment, especially as several violent incidents have recently taken place near preschools, for example, a fatal shooting on the street outside a preschool, weapons buried in a preschool playground and explosions in close proximity to preschools. The list of incidents in which children and teachers have become eyewitnesses and involved in some way is long (The Swedish Police Authority, 2023). The situation has been aggravated by the spread of false information via the international press, social media, conspiracy theories and a lack of trust in Swedish authorities, mainly the social services, which has in turn affected the trustworthiness of the preschool.
A new situation has thus arisen for preschool managers, especially those working with children and their families in areas that have been hard hit by the pandemic and other crises. The working conditions in areas labeled as particularly vulnerable by The Swedish Police Authority (2023) received a lot of attention during the COVID-19 pandemic. The effects of the pandemic were unequal, and in particularly vulnerable areas resulted in increased unemployment, high rates of sick leave and, in some cases, isolation that has been hard to overcome (Holst, 2023). A preschool manager working in a Swedish preschool is responsible for 6–10 preschools and about 60–100 employees. Statistics show that almost 87% of the children in Sweden between the ages of one and five are enrolled in preschools (The Swedish National Agency for Education, 2018).
The increased workload for preschool managers working in violent settings has been confirmed in a recent report by the Swedish Schools Inspectorate (2023). The report shows that more than half of the preschool managers working in areas defined as particularly vulnerable need to develop long-term strategies to ensure that the preschool remains a secure place and an important community function in times of crisis. Preschool managers’ complex working conditions and their commitment to maintaining the preschool as a nonviolent and safe place in the event of societal disruptions is also addressed in Agenda 2030 (Sustainability Goals 4 and 10) and guided by the purposes and principles in the Charter of the United Nations (The UN Sustainable Goals, 2015).
In this article, we reflect on the complex and precarious situation of preschool managers working in Swedish preschools in areas where violent events are frequent. How do they view their everyday work in relation to crisis preparedness and the critical situations taking place near their workplaces? To investigate this, we carried out an interview study with preschool managers working in areas defined as particularly vulnerable, where social crises have greater and harsher consequences for children and their families than in other areas. The interviews were based on what Cohen et al. (2018) describe as co-production of data, where the conversations move freely around open questions. With support from Haynes (2018), we have used our own experiences of the preschool, as preschool researchers, and of research on preschool and its management, to deepen the study.
With reference to previous studies, we have investigated how the interviewed preschool managers have accomplished a leadership based on social relationships and dialogue with children, caregivers and staff and how they have devoted themselves to and invested in their leadership (Alvinius et al., 2015; Davis and Dunn, 2022; Palmer and Eidevald, 2023). We relate to studies showing how the sense of threat, insecurity and lack of predictability is inherent in crisis management and how emotions are almost always present in decision-making (Bradshaw et al., 2022, Conway, 2022, Machado and Anderson, 2023). For instance, how the preschool manager needs to show their authority and signal confidence and optimism, even if privately they share the same worries and anxieties as their subordinates. Furthermore, we have explored the leadership strategies that they developed during the pandemic and what they learned from that intense period. Reading these previous studies and state reports, we found ourselves asking how precarity was folded into preschool managers’ accounts of their relational work in their everyday work life in the preschool.
To investigate this, we have drawn on feminist, critical phenomenology and the philosopher Butler’s (2022) recent work on the dynamics of precarity, where Butler addresses the pandemic and the fact that it affected everyone everywhere, albeit differently depending on people’s living conditions, economies and where in the world they live. As the pandemic has shown, some bodies are more vulnerable than others and the areas where people live and work determine how they might protect themselves from the virus.
Supported by Butler’s writings on the pandemic, we understand precarity to be a social condition characterized by the maintenance of and resistance to social norms and strong power structures. In addition, we understand that even the vulnerable areas described by the police as unsafe and where parallel social structures often arise can be understood as precarious and unpredictable. The insights from Butler’s writings invited us to explore what a precarious leadership might look like in a preschool context and, depending on where the preschool is located, how inequalities are perpetuated and accentuated in a social crisis.
In the analysis of the interviews, we investigate how the notion of precarity, characterized by the maintenance of and resistance to social norms and strong power structures, can help us understand the conditions of leadership in the preschool in times of insecurity. The aim of this article is therefore to investigate how precarity is folded into preschool managers’ everyday work in particularly vulnerable areas during a social crisis or a sudden emergency. The research question guiding the analysis is: What constitutes a precarious leadership in preschools during troubled times and what kind of leadership strategies are developed to ensure that the preschool remains a safe place and an important community function?
Particularly vulnerable areas and background
The article draws attention to preschools located in geographical areas with low socioeconomic status, regarded as “particularly vulnerable areas” by The Swedish Police Authority (2023). These areas are residential with high crime rates that affect the local community in various ways. Differences in income, health and children’s school results have increased compared to other areas (OECD starting strong, 2017). Both the preschool managers and the residents in these areas need to relate to the fact that conflicts of a criminal nature are more than eight times more likely to occur there than in other residential areas (Holst, 2023). One example is that shootings and acts of violence often take place in proximity to preschools, which has led to evacuation exercises becoming part of their crisis preparedness. Increased so-called unlawful influence is also prevalent in these areas, in that criminal individuals spread anxiety by operating local power (Holst, 2023; Jönsson and Nilsson, 2019). According to The Swedish Police Authority (2023), residents in these areas experience insecurity, which often leads to a reduced tendency to report crimes and participate in legal procedures.
Previous research studies have also shown that teachers in preschool and school, as well as social services, require emotional support from the preschool manager when dealing with violent incidents close to the preschool (Machado and Anderson, 2023). This is a high priority for managers in all municipal institutions, including schools and preschools, as well as the posting of crisis plans in public locations (Bradshaw et al., 2022). The daily work in the preschool is closely related to children’s rights, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989/2020), which is a recognized law in Sweden, the Curriculum for the Preschool (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2018) and The Education Act (SFS, 2010:800). All these documents, in combination with the inspections carried out by The Swedish Schools Inspectorate, promote equity.
The trend of reduced quality in the preschools in these areas increased during the pandemic, especially as preschool managers already had difficulties in recruiting qualified teachers (Alvinius and Svensén, 2020, Sheridan et al., 2020, The Swedish Schools Inspectorate, 2018). Working in preschools in vulnerable areas is not seen as particularly attractive for a number of reasons, for example, due to too few qualified colleagues, increased workloads due to language and cultural difficulties (SOU, 2020:67), crime and insecurity and a high degree of social challenges amongst the families living there (The Swedish Police Authority, 2017, 2023).
Theoretical framework and methodology
As indicated in the introduction, this article draws on feminist, critical phenomenology and Butler’s work on the dynamics of precarity and vulnerability. Supported by Butler’s book, What World is This?: A Pandemic Phenomenology (2022), we investigate how precarity is folded into preschool managers’ accounts of their relational work in accordance with the norms operating in their everyday lives and in the different aspects of leadership.
Butler (2022) turns to feminist, critical phenomenology to investigate and understand how the structures of lived experience are internalized by individuals. Inspired by this, we investigate how performativity, embodiment and power are intertwined with the norms of a precarious leadership in the preschool. These performative processes are embodied, tangible and intentional in a phenomenological sense, in that the body to some extent always relates reciprocally to other bodies and is in the world at the same time as the world is in us (2022, pp. 74–75, with reference to Merleau-Ponty).
To understand the embodiment of the leadership in the preschool we also draw inspiration from other works by Butler (1997, 2004, 2015). In her book, Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly (2015), she explains how performative embodied actions are not always consistent with the prevailing norms and certainly not in perfect accord with the most dominant norms (p. 34). Leadership positions include the dynamics of vulnerability and precarity and are, according to Butler, always related to power structures and norms.
As illustrated in the following, the managers’ working strategies can be considered as performative actions of leadership in which power is included. Power moves around and is embedded in the (in)visible norms in a preschool manager’s everyday situation. In the analyses of the interview extracts, we examine how power is produced, and by whom, in the municipality. We also explore how power affects the creation of sustainable relations with other people and with the community. In a phenomenological sense, gestures, bodily movements and speech acts are intentional, performative and included in the managers’ leadership. They are always performed in relation to something or someone. Social relationships between children, educators and guardians, what they say and do, the bodily reactions and feelings are also understood as performative acts where precarity emerges and is maintained. The preschool manager’s body can thus be understood as a tool in a professional leadership that continually relates to other bodies, the staff, children or caregivers. When reading the interview transcripts together with Butler’s critical feminist phenomenology, the relations appear to be crucial for what the managers are able to do and say both in the preschool and in the local community.
Introducing the study
In the following we present extracts and analyses from two of the in-depth-interviews carried out with 11 preschool managers working in particularly vulnerable areas in Sweden. The selection of the two interviews is based on what Cohen et al. (2018) call thematizing. The interviews (each 90-minutes long) provide in-depth descriptions and details relating to the specific theme of preschool managers’ relational work and crisis management. Consequently, we have conducted a research selection that is suitable for what can be labeled as a theoretical analysis, where interview data is connected to theoretical concepts and hypothetical research questions. However, we are aware that Adams St Pierre and Jackson (2014) have warned researchers in the social sciences not to look for patterns where none exist and not to fall into the coding fallacy (Cohen et al., 2018: 674). With this in mind, we have included longer extracts from the empirical interview material to allow the preschool managers to speak for themselves about their working conditions. Furthermore, we acknowledge that this study is small and qualitative and that the results cannot be generalized. The validity is thus context-dependent and we as researchers have had to be ethically empathetic and careful in the selection process, as well as in our approach to the theory and research questions (Swedish Research Council, 2017).
Both women and men were included in the sample with experience of working in particularly vulnerable areas ranging from 5 to 21 years. All the preschool managers in the study had completed principal education. The principal training program is a state-regulated executive education for principals, preschool managers and directors with corresponding management functions who have a key role in state-regulated and curriculum-controlled activities. In Sweden, preschool staff consist of about 30% of university educated preschool teachers with an undergraduate degree. The rest of the staff have various other forms of experience or training. The manager is responsible for providing further education for all staff, including first aid training and evacuation practices.
Informed consent was obtained before the study began, i.e. an acceptance to participate voluntarily based on detailed and clear information about what participation means in relation to the current ethical guidelines (Swedish Research Council, 2017). In the interviews, we mainly focused on questions relating to how the preschool managers dealt with emergency situations, their experiences of such incidents and whether they had developed working strategies to manage the crisis situations together with teachers, caregivers and children. Follow-up questions concerned the managers’ feelings and worries related to the handling of difficult crises situations.
Analysis of the interview extracts
We have chosen to call the preschool managers Alice and Sam (pseudonyms) and divided the analysis into two parts, each relating to a specific theme. Section 1 (Alice) examines how professional leadership includes relations, meetings and dialogue with the staff, children and caregivers both during and after a crisis. This section also concerns leadership strategies and power analysis. Section 2 (Sam) elaborates on a shooting that took place on the pavement outside a preschool and the importance of crisis plans and the (im)possibility of being prepared.
Section 1: Alice
Alice, a preschool manager with almost twenty years of leadership experience, has responsibility for seven large preschools with a total of 80 employees. In the following extract, she reflects on how feelings and social engagement are involved in her leadership:
I have experienced major crises at work. Once a preschool was on fire and during the COVID-19-pandemic I had to deal with several difficult situations due to the horrible effects of the virus. Not long ago there was an explosion in a nearby house. All these incidents have been difficult to handle, each with their own troubles and with no similarities at all. When a crisis happens it’s impossible to be well prepared. I have experienced completely different incidents, all of which have evoked different feelings inside other people and inside me. When I am in the middle of a crisis, I think I turn on some kind of autopilot. I may not be able to use what I have experienced before, but I can use the autopilot. I need to distance myself from my own feelings for a while and just do what I have to do as the responsible person I am at work. At the same time, I say to myself: “Now you’re working, but do not forget to be human.” Of course, I can walk around and be sad and all that. . . but I have to take care of that later. In my role as a preschool manager I talk a lot with the people around me. I talk to calm things down and to show people around me that I am available for them if they want to talk. I explain what we need to do now. I decide who does what and what we will do next. I try to be as clear as I can. At the same time, I watch out for future fears and what might happen next. Are there any upcoming risky situations? And I also ask others how they feel right now. Do you want to talk with me?
Despite her experience as a preschool manager, Alice articulated that it was impossible to prepare emotionally for a crisis. She described how she led on autopilot, albeit with concern for the people around her. Alice described her leadership as both rational and sensitive and that she tried to use her authority in a professional way. At the same time, she showed concern for others, how they felt and how they worked through the crisis. Turning to Butler’s (2022) reasoning on precarity, Alice’s leadership can be described as stable, relational and caring, yet vulnerable, exposed and reciprocal. In conversation with Butler’s (1997) theories of subject formations, power and agency, Alice seemed to accept the normative conditions of leadership and the subordination that comes from outside. She also went against the norms and allowed herself and others to show emotion and “be human.” She assumed responsibility as a manager and leader as she had learned to do over the years, without showing her own feelings. At the same time, she resisted the norms of a standard leadership and embraced her own vulnerability and that of others. When talking with the people around her Alice tried to be truly present in the moment, even though she was aware that she was responsible for what was happening in and around the preschool. Her leadership showed how an exposure to precarity in the work team could create a basis for mutual commitment and the creation of a working life together both during and after a crisis (cf. Butler, 2015: 192).
However, according to Alice, listening to her employees’ worries and at the same time maintaining her position as a preschool manager was a great responsibility. If employees are to trust the leader, the leader needs to show that what is said is confidential and will not affect the employee’s working conditions (Bryk and Schneider, 2002). During a crisis, the societal network around the preschool becomes even more important than at other times. The role of the preschool managers in the particularly vulnerable areas is to build a relational culture and engage with local institutions in the community in ways that are supportive when solving the problems that appear. As Alice indicated, a relational culture required mutual encounters with others and opportunities to solve problems through serious dialogue rather than brief meetings.
To create opportunities for such meetings Alice set up a small office at each of the four preschools she managed in order to be close to the teachers and the children and to communicate with caregivers in the mornings and afternoons. Instead of withdrawing from practice and avoiding controversy, she wanted to connect, be visible and communicate. She explained how the everyday work in vulnerable areas, in her position as a preschool manager, was framed by unpredictability and the importance of being there, accessible and communicative. Alice recalled a situation that appeared quickly and was over in a few minutes:
This happened the other day, behind us in the woods. Suddenly, a lot of police helicopters started going up and down. The teachers were worried and wondered: “Has something happened there in the forest?” I immediately went to my office and called the police to check out what was happening. They replied, “No, we’re practising, nothing has happened.” Then I went out to the playground again and said “No, they’re practising, it’s nothing.”
This extract shows the importance of being present as a preschool manager, solving problems here and now and at the same time reaching out to other institutions in the community. In this example, the performative embodied actions of leadership included calming down a situation that might otherwise have escalated. Instead of an evacuation, which could have caused stress and anxiety amongst the staff, the daily work proceeded as usual in this preschool. This example illustrates the everyday presence of crime in the community and how sounds from a helicopter, ambulance or fire engine signal attention. The police patrol this neighborhood continuously and crisis exercises are carried out routinely by both the police and the emergency services. The violence, the police looking for criminals—or practising that—and other incidents near the preschool are included in the area’s everyday life and embedded in the social norms operating locally. In this situation, Alice needed to juggle several positions simultaneously and at different levels, and at the same time be aware of laws and work ethics. According to five of the preschool managers we interviewed (of 11), this parallel and informal set of regulations affected the work with the children in the preschools. Established routines, such as a direct telephone connection to the police and an easy way of posing questions to authorities were therefore important and made everyday life at the preschool easier.
The situation with the helicopter, together with Butler’s reasoning on a pandemic phenomenology, shows that a particularly vulnerable area and the bodies living there are both precarious and exposed. This area is considered vulnerable, and the preschools located there are not regarded as safe as preschools in more well-established areas. This is confirmed in a report from the National Council for Crime Protection (Jönsson and Nilsson, 2019), in which caregivers expressed their concerns about the social contexts in particularly vulnerable areas, perceived as separated from the rest of society and not optimal environments for children (pp. 26–27). Similarly, one of the 11 preschool managers in our study described how the preschool children in their care had to walk through the shopping center on their way to school in the mornings, encounter young people selling drugs and adults who looked away when something violent happens.
When we asked questions about what it was like to work in an area with a high degree of criminality, Alice responded that it had made her observant and sometimes suspicious. She continually analysed both lived and imagined situations in relation to power. According to Butler (2004), these power analyses can be understood as precarious, unstable and in motion, in that Alice never knew what might happen next. She needed to be innovative, relate to the circumstances around her and the competences of the staff. From Alice’s point of view, an everyday power analysis helped her to deal with the situations and encounters in her work and to better understand her own and other people’s reactions. This precarious work included both a maintenance of and a resistance to social norms and strong power structures. Being alert and prepared for potential crisis situations was something that Alice taught the staff, which provided a way of acting responsibly and strategically in the daily work with the children and their families. Carrying out a power analysis as a preschool manager is important in their everyday work in particularly vulnerable areas, which according to Alice was framed by unpredictability.
Butler’s (2022) power analysis of the pandemic revealed that there are many overlapping worlds, some of which are defined as exposed (p. 2). Signifying an area as particularly vulnerable does something with it and the people living there. The area and its label is repetitively and performatively materialized as unstable and dangerous to visit, work or live in. At the same time, for some people it may feel safe to live there. In the report mentioned above (Jönsson and Nilsson, 2019), caregivers explained that friendship and loyalty with neighbors and relatives was strong in these areas and that family members looked after each other (pp. 34–35). The report further described how friends stood up for each other and solved problems locally and without police involvement. This made the work of a municipally employed preschool manager difficult, because it is important strictly adhere to the rules and laws governing the preschool and not be drawn into other loyalties or risk being exposed to unlawful influences. In the preschool there is a risk that unlawful influence will occur, and it is the manager’s task to identify when that happens, stop it and avoid the negative consequences it brings. Power analyses, action plans and assessments were regarded by the preschool managers as helpful tools when documenting and following up incidents concerning unlawful influence. 1
Section 2: Sam
Sam was responsible for eight large preschools and 90 employees and had fifteen years of work experience in an area exposed to criminality in recent years. Sam explained that earlier they always practised evacuation from the preschool in case of fire. Now they practised how to move children safely from the playground to a safe room in the preschool building. During the interview Sam talked about a crisis incident she found difficult to manage, namely a shooting on the pavement outside the preschool and her reflections on her leadership:
A few months ago, a shooting took place on the pavement outside one of my preschools. The teachers were frightened and anxious, but we all tried not show our feelings to the children. Instead, we followed what we had learned when practising with the children and reading the crisis manual. Keeping calm, acting normally and talking softly was an important strategy. When we heard the sound from the gun and screams and saw people running the teachers kept their cool, gathered the children together and moved them into the preschool’s playroom. This room has no windows and has been prepared as a panic room with a direct phone line to the police. In this room we installed code locks on all the doors. It felt safe. The headteacher pressed the button to cut the power off so that no one could get in. After this incident the teachers needed extra support from me in the shape of one-to-one-talks and firm support. They were cool and collected in front of the children and their guardians but shaken and frightened inside. We made some changes to the schedule afterwards so that no-one had to open or close the preschool alone, and that this is now always done in pairs. I listened carefully to what they needed then and there and tried my best so show them my support. So, if you listen properly as a manager you know what to do.
Working in an exposed area with shootings close to the preschools in her care had urged Sam to prepare the staff for new and unexpected situations. The teachers had carried out crisis exercises and Sam had prepared the staff using provocative questions: If a threatening incident takes place in the preschool playground, what should we do? Where can the children be gathered, in which room?
Even though everything was done correctly at the time, Sam reflected on her position as a preschool manager after the event. She regarded herself as a balanced and experienced leader with authority. Her actions that day were sanctioned from the municipality and her employment as a manager, although she still felt vulnerable and shaken inside, like her staff. When relating this situation to Butler’s (1997) theorizing on power, the powerful authority as a manager acted on her from the outside, at the same time as authority was performed by her. Afterwards Sam made the necessary changes to the staff’s schedule and arranged meetings to check how everyone felt. Sam also scrutinized the crisis plans and tried to prepare for next potential crisis. Sam talked about the need for crisis plans like this:
We try to act proactively, but we cannot know in advance what will happen next. We do not know until it has happened. What I mean is that it is not until we hear that there is a shooting that we think; “Whoops, we need a plan for this.” But it’s hard to have all these plans prepared in advance. I think we have plans for as much as possible so that it will be safe for our children. But is it possible to predict everything? I don’t know. I think that our crisis plan can be applied to many different crises, with perhaps a little modification here and there. However, it is important to think through what constitutes a crisis. It could be a bomb threat or actual bombs. . . There are a lot of car fires near the preschools, but I wouldn’t say that car fires are necessarily a crisis because we have become so used to them now.
Sam mentioned the importance of listening as a strategic approach to solving problems, something that all the interviewed preschool managers talked about and highlighted as an important leadership strategy. This reminded us of the aftermath of other societal crises related to Sweden, such as the Estonia catastrophe (1994) and the Tsunami in The Indian Ocean that affected many Swedish families (2004). Most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic (2020) showed the importance of listening to people’s aggression, hate, worries or anxieties, without silencing criticism or accepting what happened. In connection with the terrorist attack that took place on 9/11 in the USA, Butler wrote (2004) that in order to understand someone else you need to be aware of the vulnerability of others. Sam worked in a similar way by listening to the staff. Parallel to this work, the teachers also talked a lot with the children themselves. Of course, the children had heard about the shooting and seen adults around them being sad and upset. In these talks it was important to invite and deal with the children’s and teachers’ vulnerabilities as a prerequisite for mutual exchange. The adults at the preschool were responsible for the children’s well-being and therefore unable to show their feelings to them. From this perspective, Sam understood her role as a communication partner or even a therapist for the teachers, children and parents involved with the preschool. Afterwards, Sam established contact with The Swedish Child Health Services and gained direct access to a psychologist who talked to and played with the children, as well as offered counseling to the staff and caregivers. Sams feelings of vulnerability as a preschool manager were echoed across 8 of the11 participant transcripts.
Later on, Sam reflected on the collaboration with other community services, such as maternity clinics, schools, social services and the police. Even though she found the cooperation with social health services effective, she lacked straightforward and easy connections to the police. Sam said:
Last night there was an explosion close to the preschool. Incredibly close. I read about it in the local newspaper and went to the preschool early the next morning. As a preschool manager I do not receive information directly from the police and I believe that when it comes to emergency events the collaboration between the police and the preschool needs to be better. When there are turbulences in the area, the children do not come to the preschool at all. The day after the explosion only a few children came to the preschool. So, then I had to write a letter to the parents; “Please bring the children to the preschool.” Writing that kind of letter is part of the job. You get used to it. However, as I said to my colleagues the other day, we must not become too distanced and dehumanised.
As this extract shows, there are differences between the various preschools around the country and their relations with the police. The good contact that Alice (see Section 1) had established with the police at her preschools was not present in Sam’s case, in that she had read about the explosion near the preschool in the newspaper. The police are responsible for an important part of the crime prevention work that takes place in preschools (The Swedish Police Authorities, 2023). Likewise, authorities like preschools are expected to support the police in their work. In the preschool, there is a daily collaboration with the Social services, the Police and the Child health centre, closely related to children’s rights (The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989/2020).
To sum up, explosions, shootings and other crisis situations near preschools mean that caregivers often choose to keep their children at home after a crisis. This is also connected to false information being spread through international media, conspiracy theories and a distrust of authorities, which is now more prevalent and affects people’s trust in the preschools. Leading and maintaining the preschool as a safe place for all children in a societal crisis is part of the role of the preschool manager—a task that all 11 interviewees expressed that they needed help with from caregivers, teachers, the municipality and other societal institutions such as the police and politicians.
Concluding thoughts and implications for practice
In this article we have investigated preschool managers handling of difficult crises situations. The interviews, read together with Butler’s philosophical thinking, display a leadership strategy that we consider to be useful for practice. This involves listening, dialogue and the ongoing creation and nurture of relations. When the preschool manager listens to the desires and actions of the staff, children and caregivers, processes are set in motion and routines for leadership can be established. This kind of relational leadership is not possible to set in motion without a community, cooperation and relations with others. In this precarious leadership, the bodies, touch and emotions are included as necessary tools. This is something that distinguishes preschool leadership from other types of leadership. As the leader of a preschool you are close to both the children and the staff, and without a physical presence it is difficult to maintain a sensitive and reliable leadership. This became evident during the pandemic when the distance between people increased. The circulation of the virus interrupted relationships and created gaps between different institutions and between people (Butler, 2022).
The findings of this study illustrate how the leadership of the preschool in these areas is infused with emotion and precarity. As Butler (2022) states, for equality and livability to become pervasive features of our world, we need to entwine social life with ethics and politics. Thus, there is a need for increased support, not only financial but also structural and for social backing directed at preschools in vulnerable areas (OECD Starting strong, 2017). New precarious situations will appear and being there and taking care of situations which are not always possible to prepare for, is part of the everyday work as a manager. Nevertheless, this is not an easy task. As already mentioned, the managers are often responsible for 6–10 preschools. They cannot be everywhere at the same time or deal with every unsafe situation that appears in the day-to-day work.
Finally, in their position as accountable leaders, preschool managers cannot exceed or determine power and responsibility. There are no free zones or possible escape exits and, as Butler (2004) explains, it is not always possible to foresee the consequences of power, or how it appears and moves. Listening to people’s worries and insecurities often develops empathy and a deeper understanding of how power affects people’s different life realities. Getting to know others and understanding their living conditions, gaining knowledge about social inequality and the societal effects of diversity and social justice is included in the preschool manager role. A precarious leadership in the preschool, as developed in this article, could, together with others, show how to navigate through crises and challenges in an unstable world situation.
