Educational evaluation as a rhythmical policy phenomenon

Abstract

Public pressure on evaluation has influenced educational projects and national evaluation systems for many decades. This article extends the ongoing discussions in the field, offering a problematising exploration of evaluation as an educational policy phenomenon, thinking with the notion of rhythm in the analysis. Approaching educational evaluation with the notion of rhythm has, for us, implied a philosophical exploration of the dynamics between evaluation and education, drawing on the writings of Henri Lefebvre and Anna L. Tsing. Rolling of chairs between computers, with the policy documents spread out on a table alongside the original philosophical texts, in a material sense, placed us, as researchers, in an embodied analytical process between human and non-human agency. The turns and returns, back and forth, between policy, philosophy, and previous research enabled unexpected frictions to emerge and prompted us to view issues central to evaluation in surprisingly new ways. ‘Striving towards goals and orientations’, ‘goal-in-between’, ‘striving-in-between’, and ‘results of and for results’ are with inspiration from Anna L. Tsing presented as a rush of troubled stories.

Evaluation as values and the proposal of this article

Evaluation has a long history as part of educational projects and has been governed by policy at different levels (Lundgren, 1990). However, for there to be an evaluation, some values are emphasised, documented, analysed, and judged. In an era where the prior lens for understanding and organising societies is economy, education tends to be instrumentalised as a “high value return” (Ball, 2017: 27). When knowledge becomes ‘commodified’ and treated as a product that could be provided or purchased, comparison and competitivity become central (Ball, 2017; Vandenbroeck et al., 2022). When education is framed within these logics, evaluation becomes a major player in the game, functioning as a governing and sanctioning tool (c.f., Ball, 2017; Gorur, 2013). As Biesta (2011) noted, interest in evaluating or measuring education has increased internationally over the last three decades. As we cannot consider evaluation neutral or existing in a vacuum, it needs to be understood in relation to specific time, space, and bodily relations. Ambiguous aspects concerning assessment and evaluation in preschool, as shown in previous research (Alasuutari et al., 2014; Moberg, 2018; Svärdemo Åberg and Insulander, 2019), make evaluation policy in preschool a generative point of departure for discussing the dynamics between education and evaluation in a wider educational and global connection.

In this article, we draw on Tesar’s proposal to think “philosophy and policy together” (Tesar, 2016: 311), as an attempt to open different stories of evaluation beyond the instrumental and homogenising “story of neoliberal globalization” (c.f. Tsing, 2005: 269). By putting the notion of rhythm into movement, building on Lefebvre’s (2013) idea of rhythmanalysis and Tsing’s (2015) notion of polyphonic assemblages of rhythms, the overarching aim of this article is to explore and problematise evaluation as an educational policy phenomenon. Specifically, we explore the question: How can evaluation in (pre)school policy be understood when thinking with the notion of rhythm in the analysis?

The philosophical approach, engaging with the notion of rhythm, has involved us in what Tsing and Ebron have framed as the “rhythms of listening, inscribing and thinking, that gives life to our research” (2015: 683). A nonlinear thinking of policy as an attempt to “historicise and materialise policy” (Tesar, 2021: 312) was therefore undertaken. Following Tesar (2021), this means an attempt to offer an alternative to the idea of policy as deprived of temporal and material aspects, emphasising the actual state of affairs. In line with Lefebvre, a rhythmical conception of thinking is used, that is exploring “the diverse relations between human beings and the universe” (Lefebvre, 2013: 26). Rethinking policy entanglements can, as claimed by Malone et al. (2020), challenge a dangerous, superficial, and narrowing view of the educational field. For us, thinking policy with the notion of rhythm means both putting policy in a temporal perspective and focusing on materialising aspects and possible emerging futures.

Evaluation can be seen as a policy phenomenon, since policy formulations on different levels are tied to a wider political and curricular tradition, with intrinsic and sometimes contradictory values and views on what education in preschool is or should be. The curricular traditions have, from an international perspective, mainly been described as two different approaches: the “readiness for school” and the “Nordic” approach (OECD, 2006: 141). The differences are also framed as “pre-primary” and “socialpedagogic” approach (Bennet, 2005: 5), “Anglo-American” and “socio-cultural” tradition (Gravis et al., 2022: 2), and “outcome” and “input” based approaches (OECD, 2012: 83; Vallberg Roth, 2014: 4) The former has a long tradition of monitoring and measuring individual children’s learning, while the latter has historically foregrounded a holistic view of the child without assessing children’s competencies and development (c.f., Alasuutari et al., 2014; Bennet, 2005). Since globalisation strongly influences policy at the national level, competition on the global market and the growing goal- and result-based governance of education facilitate the influence of the outcome on behalf of the input approach (c.f. Alasuutari et al., 2014; Ball, 2017; Blossing et al., 2014).

Although the study is specifically located in preschool context, it serves as an overarching philosophical experimentation and exploration of the dynamics between evaluation and education relevant to other school forms that use overarching goals (c.f., Swedish National Agency for Education [SNAE], 2022). The results also have implications for (pre)school education in other Nordic countries and in countries with similar constructions of the curriculum that highlight a holistic view of children and education, such as New Zealand and Australia (Malloy 2020).

We start with a brief orientation in the field, drawing on our reading of previous research. We then engage in the rhythmical approach of the analysis in more detail. Evaluation as a policy phenomenon is then presented in a rhythmic rush of stories, followed by conclusions and relevant issues for further exploration.

Entering educational evaluation: Orientation in the field

The issue of educational (in)equality is widely stressed by governmental initiatives, inspections, and research (Blossing et al., 2014; OECD, 2021, Prop. 2009/10:165, SFS, 2010, Swedish Research Council, 2015, Swedish Schools Inspectorate, 2018) How evaluation is related to and used to address (in)equality issues in education depends on the different logics underlying the concept of equality. On the one hand, equality is defined as diminishing injustices and providing equal possibilities to participate in education; on the other hand, it is framed by a neoliberal agenda and is defined in terms of equal possibilities to choose (school) and to guarantee outcomes through result governance (Bradbury, 2014; Burger, 2013). The reading of previous research as an orientation in the field is presented here as three conceptualisations of evaluation: evaluation as a solution, evaluation as a paradox, and evaluation as a productive apparatus. These conceptualisations emerged during the analytic work, with the purpose of problematising policy in relation to historical, societal, and material conditions (c.f. Paananen et al., 2015; Tesar, 2016).

Evaluation as a solution implies an argumentation of quality assurance to solve existing and growing inequalities (OECD, 2011). Evidence derived from nationally or internationally comparable studies is sought to inform political decisions, policy developers, and school improvement projects (OECD, 2021). Scales such as the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS) or Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) are often used in research and are combined with measures of children’s learning and development to predict outcomes or establish causation between input and output (Early et al., 2018; Gerholm et al., 2019; Hall et al., 2013; Lehrl and Smidt, 2018). In many studies, however, correlation or causation between input and output is not statistically established (c.f., Gerholm et al., 2019; Guerrero Rosada, 2021), and where some causation is found, the effect sizes are often low (c.f., Early et al., 2018). Related methodological issues are primarily used for recalibrating tools to provide increased validity (c.f. Early et al., 2018). Some studies, however, stress a possible reverse causation, in which children’s previous competencies may have caused high scores on the scales rather than the other way around (Buell et al., 2017). Others problematise the test situation for children and stress the difficulty of measuring complex competencies, such as executive functions or social skills (Gerholm et al., 2019).

Evaluation as a paradox underlines how an increased need for evaluation, in the sense of controlling outcomes and results, comes with decentralisation and the distribution of responsibility (Veiler, 1990). Research has shown that demands for transparency and visibility make practices opaque and alienate evaluations from the realities they are supposed to represent (c.f. Löfdahl and Pérez Prieto, 2009; Moberg, 2018). This paradox, or the “struggle of visibility” (Ball, 2006: 693), can further be understood in relation to the marketisation of education, in which knowledge, learning, and care are translated into competing products (c.f. Gorur, 2013; Vandenbroeck et al., 2022). Research also shows how the problem of inequality sometimes translates into an information problem, focusing on providing satisfactory information to parents (Gorur, 2013). The paradox also challenges the idea of assessment validity or true accounts representing the world, arguing that ontological “category mistakes” occur (Tummons, 2020: 48). Biesta (2016: 120) warns for a “culture of educational positivism,” where professional judgement is overruled by the call for evidence. Evaluation as a paradox, thus, conceptualises evaluation as a tension field made up of multiple actors (Takayama and Lingard, 2021) and problematises the concept of quality itself rather than recalibrating tools, arguing that the term quality cannot accommodate the complex, diverse, and ambiguous aspects of education (Moss, 2016; Moss and Dahlberg, 2008). According to Moss and Dahlberg (2008), the evaluation of education must be grounded in a value-based dialogue and discussion between different stakeholders rather than on predetermined criteria and quality levels.

Evaluation as a productive apparatus offers a troubling approach to evaluation consisting of an argumentation of evaluation as having productive effects on education rather than being accountable for education (c.f., Elfström Pettersson, 2019; Löfdahl and Pérez Prieto, 2009; Malloy, 2020; Moberg, 2018; Thiel, 2020). A performative view of documentation and evaluation as a tool that produces qualities (Elfström Pettersson, 2019: 194, italics in original) cannot simultaneously be a retrospective representation of quality. Malloy (2020: 3) frames evaluation as an entangled “material-discursive apparatus” with productive effects. Research findings also show how one evaluative apparatus is “agentially enfolded into other apparatus” (Thiel, 2020: 479), and producing power relations, anxiety, and a quasi-market.

Entering a rhythmic approach: Theory and method entangled

To explore and problematise evaluation as an educational policy phenomenon, we orchestrate philosophical engagement with policy (c.f. Tesar, 2016). In the following section, we briefly define some rhythmical considerations, drawing on Lefebvre (2013) and Tsing’s notion of polyphonic assemblages of rhythms (2015). We then describe the methodological approach that weaves policy, philosophy, and previous research.

Rhythmical considerations

Since rhythms, according to Lefebvre (2013), always imply a measure, we find it particularly suitable for exploring evaluation. Our rhythmic considerations are therefore inspired by Lefebvre’s way of taking up different themes or phenomena and rethinking them through the notion of rhythm (Lefebvre, 2013). Lefebvre’s rhythmanalytical project originates from an idea of how different phenomena are “composed of (reciprocally influential) rhythms in interaction” (51), which are “entangled with one another” (102). Such a pluralistic approach, refusing a reductive or simplistic understanding of the world, is also central for Tsing (2015). Taking up Tsing’s notion of polyphonic assemblages of rhythms, that is as “open ended gatherings” (2015: 23), ¹ creates openings for noticing and rethinking phenomena in the world in a nuanced way. Polyphony can be described as intertwined melodies in music, contrasting our habitual way of listening to a unifying melody with a single beat (Tsing, 2015). It is due to the engagement in exploring world-making projects, produced by interfering, and interacting rhythms, present in both Lefebvre and Tsing’s work that we find this theoretical orchestration fruitful. Other studies combining Tsing and Lefebvre are found in fields such as anthropology (Syring, 2009), political sciences (Björkdahl and Gusic, 2016; Buckley-Zistel, 2016), and studies on global land and resources (Exner et al., 2021). In our theoretical orchestration, we specifically draw on Lefebvre’s concepts of linear and cyclical movements in their production of rhythms and on the temporal concepts of repetition and difference constituting rhythms. From Tsing, we found it particularly helpful to draw on the concept of friction as “a reminder of the importance of interaction in defining movement,” or, in other words, “the grip of encounter” (Tsing, 2005: 6, 5).

The weaving of policy, philosophy, and research

Weaving philosophy with a method, as suggested by Tesar (2021), invites us to slow down, staying with a thought and being ethically sensible and attuned to the rhythms of the process, moving back and forth in-between philosophy, policy, earlier research, and ourselves. Therefore, we draw on Tesar’s (2021: 544) suggestion of letting “philosophy acts as a method, which is centred on the driving force to read and think, and to have an ethical relationship with a thought.” In line with Tesar’s arguments, this is not the same as philosophy becoming a method in an instrumentalised manner, with predetermined rules or procedures to follow. A moving complexity of relations requires an analysis able to “ride with the movements” (Lefebvre, 2013: 25) and cannot isolate an object, a relation, or a subject in a reductive way.

Since the analysis seeks to explore both the multiplicity and the particularity of rhythms, knowledge from different perspectives is integrated with the concrete case of the policy documents. Thus, the particular rhythms emerging in Swedish policy documents are interwoven with what Tsing (2005: 156) calls “wider rhythms and histories” on a global, social, economic, and political scale. Previous research in the field, as well as reports and documented political decisions connected to evaluation as a policy phenomenon, is therefore rhythmically interwoven in our analysis. The ongoing weaving process, including writing the article, therefore implied what Lefebvre (2013: 89) described as attentive listening to rhythms in the sense of disturbing the surface and setting “its limpidity in motion.” Conducting an analysis and seeking to know how a phenomenon (in this article, evaluation in educational policy) is composed, who plays it, and for whom means, in the words of Lefebvre (2013), being capable of “listening out” as one listens to a symphony (94). Similarly, Tsing describes pluralistic listening as polyphonic. We therefore draw on Lefebvre’s (2013: 95) way of using the double sense of the French word for hearing, “entend,” as both understanding and noticing, and on what Tsing calls the “arts of noticing” (37). Taking up the practices of noticing means quoting Tsing (2015: 255) to “comb through the mess,” noticing difference and multiple rhythms and trajectories that are not easily summed up. For us, this implied observing details and listening to apparently small changes and differences in the policy texts, together with previous research and political tendencies.

Policies in our analysis include governing, guiding, and supporting policies published by the Swedish National Agency for Education [SNAE] ² framing the evaluation work in preschools. The analysis starts in the middle of contemporary policy and reaches back until 1998, when the first preschool curriculum was published. The governing contemporary policies are the Educational Act (SFS, 2010:800) and the Curriculum for the preschool: Lpfö18 (SNAE, 2019). The guiding policies are the general guidelines: ‘Goal achievement in preschool’ (SNAE, 2017) and ‘Systematic quality work – For the school system’ (SNAE, 2012a). The supporting policy is since a few years a web-based material (SNAE, 2020).

In the analytical work, contemporary policy is then historicised in relation to outdated policy, with the purpose of breaking from what Tesar has identified as a “certain idea of ‘non-time’ and ‘non-history’ of policy and its futures in Western culture and discourse” (2021: 312). The first curriculum, Lpfö89 (SNAE, 1998), and one revised version based on changes in the evaluation sections (SNAE, 2010) are included. The outdated general guidelines are ‘Quality reporting in the education system’ (SNAE, 1999), ‘Quality reporting’ (SNAE, 2006), ‘Quality in preschool’ (SNAE, 2005), and ‘Preschool’ (SNAE, 2013). The outdated support materials are ‘Quality work in preschool and school – Handbook in quality reporting’ (SNAE, 2007), ‘Quality work in praxis’ (SNAE, 2015), and ‘Follow-up, evaluation, and development in preschool – Pedagogical documentation’ (SNAE, 2012b).

Evaluation as a policy phenomenon: Results in a rhythmic rush of stories

The rhythmic stories of evaluation we present below show where polyphonic assemblages of rhythms emerged and how frictions came together during the analytical work. “Listen to and tell a rush of stories” is, following Tsing (2015: 37), a method for knowledge creation in which the research object is characterised by “contaminated diversity.” Working with and presenting our analysis in a rhythmic rush of stories is, for us, a way of making disparate stories comprehensible in relation to one another, even when they are not easily summed up, as Tsing underlines. The turns and returns brought us to problematise the striving character of the goals as ‘striving towards goals and orientations’. The rush of stories also troubles issues with goals and striving, such as ‘goal-in-between’ and ‘striving-in-between’. Lastly, we elaborate on the relationship between analysis and results in the evaluation work, problematising ‘analysis of and for results’.

Striving towards goals and orientations

In a goal-oriented approach to evaluation, goals are the eye of the cyclone – a site where constitutive encounters create assemblages of rhythms (c.f. Tsing, 2015), telling stories of what evaluation should be as well as what it could be. Describing goals as “the orientation of the education” (SNAE, 2019: 13) and “indicating an orientation to strive towards” (SNAE, 2017: 10) can, with Lefebvre’s (2013) analytical approach, be understood as composed of cyclical movements of social organisation of a longer period of time, not necessarily with a defined starting point and endpoint. Turning to the general guidelines for systematic quality work embracing the entire school system in Sweden, a more linear movement appear. Here, goals are defined as “goals to strive towards” (SNAE, 2012a: 46), differentiating striving goals from goals to achieve used in compulsory school. Analysing back and forth between the documents, we noted friction in the direction of the striving. A rhythm of striving towards the goals and a rhythm of striving towards an orientation emerges in our analysis. Striving towards an orientation based on goals can be understood as more open-ended or cyclical movement. Striving towards a goal that is ahead can be understood as more linear, closed, or predefined.

Goal-in-between

In our analysis of how specific goal formulations are rhythmically produced, the frictions create goal-in-between. By in-between, we accentuate how striving goals in preschool, similar to overarching goals in compulsory school (SNAE, 2022), are produced by cyclical and linear movements of both repetition and difference (c.f., Lefebvre, 2013: 84). In the curriculum (SNAE, 2019), the formulation of goals is composed of two interlinked parts. First comes an introducing formulation specifying what the preschool ought to do: “The preschool should provide each child with the conditions to develop (…)” (SNAE, 2019: 13). Providing conditions relates to educational processes in terms of organising, implementing, teaching, enacting, and relating, which can be understood as cyclical movements, in Lefebvre’s terms characterised by “undulations, vibrations, returns, and rotations” (2013: 84). Second comes a bullet list, differentiating and specifying what content preschool children should get conditions to develop. The content part is constituted by different aspects of knowledge, such as “ability to,” “understanding of,” “un interest in,” “a nuanced use of,” and “a growing reasonability for” (SNAE, 2019: 13–15), in combination with a more specific content. The specific content is often expressed with verbs such as “discern, express, investigate, and use,” followed by different subject contents, for example, “mathematical concepts and their interrelationships” (SNAE, 2019: 15). With inspiration from Lefebvre, the content part of the goal can be understood as both cyclical and linear. It is cyclical, given that verbs such as discern, express, and investigate can be related to “freshness of a discovery and an invention,” which Lefebvre (2013: 82) attributed to cyclical movements. It is linear, considering that subject contents such as ‘mathematical concepts and their interrelationships’ have a more or less defined beginning and end, attributed to linear movements by Lefebvre (2013). The different content parts, presented in the curriculum as a bullet list, do not repeat the first part of educational processes, that is, provide each child conditions to develop the listed contents.

However, the linear and cyclical aspects are, according to Lefebvre, always part of a phenomenon, enabling analytical ways to grasp a moving complexity. In our analysis, goal-in-between linear and cyclical movement, therefore, imply a double aspect of goals. This means that educational processes are part of the goal rather than separated from the goal, framing goals merely as content for the education. Understanding goals as both educational processes and content directs the evaluation work to the process part without losing sight of the content part, which thus has intrinsic connections to the children, such as in raising interest, growing responsibility, and so forth. Another approach to goals in preschool, discussed by Persson (Persson, 2022), argues for “the process as the goal and the goal as the process” (161, our translation). According to Persson, this view is aligned with political logics expressed in the curriculum (SNAE, 2019). By including other governing, guiding, and supporting policies, we open up an extended discussion concerning goals, with the purpose of problematising evaluation in a wider educational and global connection.

Striving-in-between

According to the goal and result governance, goals in the curriculum are goals for the preschool to achieve (SNAE, 2012a, 2012b; 2017, 2019). This encompasses a challenge regarding how a striving goal is also to be achieved, and who is supposed to strive, which takes us to the core of evaluation. A friction of striving-in-between emerges, problematising whether the goals create a striving rhythm for the children in terms of content rather than a striving rhythm for the educational processes. Historicising the question leads us back to the political ambition in the 1990s of unifying the Swedish curriculum for pre- and compulsory school. At that time, the Preschool and School Committee proposed goals to strive towards for the preschool and goals for the children to achieve (SOU 1997:154: 157, 132). Although there was a historic rhythm of homogenising preschool and compulsory school, the proposal to stipulate goals for children to achieve did not succeed, mainly because of the non-obligatory form of preschool education (c.f., Elfström, 2013: 41). However, the question remains: What rhythms could this ‘striving goals’ create and who is striving for these goals?

Thinking the striving question together with recent revisions in the Education act (2010:800 ³ ) a linear rhythm of striving towards goals as contents emerges. The new formulations stipulate the (preschool) teacher as a leader of the processes during lessons or other learning activities towards goals. We therefore argue that leading processes towards goals separates the processes from the goals, rather than seeing them as part of the goals, as discussed above. Re-listening to previous formulations in terms of goal-oriented processes (SFS, 2010:800), a leap is now built between the Educational Act and the curriculum (SNAE, 2019), where the term goal-oriented processes still is used. We are thus arguing that encounters of institutional logics expressed in the curriculum, general guidelines, support materials (SNAE, 2012a, 2012b, 2017, 2019, 2020), and the Educational Act (SFS, 2010:800) create frictions, making it challenging for practitioners to interpret and enact national policy. Staying attentive to frictions, understood as “the grip of encounter” (Tsing, 2005: 5), makes it possible for us to problematise evaluation in policy, as the co-producing interactions cannot be understood as simple flows.

Analysis of and for results

The evaluation of education in relation to goals is also connected to the concept of results and how results in relation to analysis are understood. In our turns and returns between policy documents, a double and frictional rhythm of the analytical work in relation to the results emerged. On the one hand, analysis of results emerges as a rhythm of the analytical work in the sense of analysing previously collected results. On the other hand, analysis for results emerges as another rhythm of the analytical work in the sense of analysing different materials with the purpose of getting a result.

In analysis of results, the results are understood as outcomes of an effort or input, defined as “visible changes in learning” (SNAE 2012a: 28) or as information possible to collect and gather (SNAE, 2020). The circular quality work model in the support material (SNAE, 2020) is visually cyclical, but since the model is described as steps following one another, it enfolds linear aspects in a more routinised succession of movements (c.f. Lefebvre, 2013). In the first step of the model, ‘Where are we?’, the results are supposed to be summarised, describing the present (SNAE, 2020). One of the listed examples of results relevant for preschool is ‘how the education has contributed to children’s development and learning’. Some sentences below the text state, ‘This is done without analysis of the material’ (SNAE, 2020). This appears paradoxical, since the analytical work is emphasised, both in various descriptions of systematic quality work, in recent inspections (Swedish Schools Inspectorate, 2018) and in a meta-study by Svärdemo Åberg and Insulander (2019). We also question whether and how it is possible to know how education has contributed to learning without an analysis. The analytical work is, according to the model (SNAE, 2020), supposed to be done in the second step of the quality work model: ‘Where are we going?’ However, when results are understood as collectable outcomes and information, the analysis becomes analysis of results, focusing on comparing, interpreting, explaining, and problematising the previously summarised results (SNAE, 2020).

In analysis for results, the results are understood as what can be said about a phenomenon after an analysis is done. In the guidelines for quality work, where results are defined as “visible changes in learning” (SNAE 2012a: 28), there is also a definition of analysis, twisting the relation between analysis and result, that is, “exploring different parts of a material and coming up with a result” (SNAE, 2012a: 49). The analysis is foregrounded in current guidelines targeting only preschool education, but the word result is sparingly used (SNAE, 2017). The analytical work is directed at how educational processes affect children’s play, development, and learning but does not link analysis to results. Results are referred to when goal achievements are defined as “results in relation to goals” (SNAE, 2017: 1), a definition generally used in the school system.

Historicising this issue, we note how the term result is gaining ground. In outdated support material targeting evaluation in preschool, the word result is absent (SNAE, 2012b), and when the word is used in outdated guidelines, it refers to “how well the preschool work in relation to the goals” (SNAE, 2005: 39). Moreover, descriptions of the analytical work with an outspoken connection to preschool education have diminished. And when analysis is described in contemporary policy, it is almost purely an analysis of results. Further historicising the rhythms of analysis in relation to results, achievements, and evaluation takes us back to the late 1980s, when the goal and result governance of education was introduced in Sweden, substituting previous regulation governance (Prop. 1988/89:4). Evaluation and inspection activities further increased with the entry of the new Educational Act in 2010, based on the introduced logics of marketisation and free choice of schools in the 1990s (Prop. 1991/92:95; SFS 2010: 800). Results as collectable outcomes and information that are possible to control, report, and compare became even more crucial, a tendency that aligns with the educational positivism discussed by Biesta (2016). However, the evaluation task, specified in the introduction to the first curriculum (SNAE, 1998), underlined that evaluation should target the education provided to children, and not evaluate and assess individual children. This turned out to be a difficult task for practitioners to interpret and enact (SNAE, 2008). In the next version of the curriculum, the introduction was removed (SNAE, 2010), and the formulation of not assessing children in the general guidelines for preschool (SNAE, 2005) disappeared in later publications (SNAE, 2013). In the current guideline (SNAE, 2017), the formulation then reappeared in a briefer mode. However, recent inspections (Swedish Schools Inspectorate, 2018) and research (Svärdemo Åberg and Insulander, 2019) show how teachers and principals still struggle with evaluation and assessment practices in preschool. We therefore argue for the need for a deepened engagement with the issue of evaluation and what counts as results and outcomes in preschool.

Conclusions and implications

A philosophical engagement with policy, as suggested by Tesar (2021: 545), implies a troubling approach, formulating questions related to evaluation rather than providing clear answers to the object of study or suggesting procedures to follow. The reading of the national policy, together with the notion of rhythm and previous research, shows encounters of rhythms and emerging frictions regarding evaluation as a policy phenomenon.

First, we question how to understand the striving character of goals. Although the concept of striving goals is well-established in Swedish preschools, we trouble the direction of the striving, asking what difference a rhythm of striving towards the goals and a rhythm of striving towards an orientation might entail. Second, we problematise how goals for Swedish preschool education, similar to overarching goals in compulsory school (SNAE, 2022), are produced by cyclical and linear movements of repetition and difference, creating goal-in-between. This means that goals encompass both educational processes and content. This way of understanding goals, instead of reducing goals to content, entails both method and content in a way similar to how philosophy as a method is framed (Arndt, 2017; Malone et al., 2020). Third, by problematising striving as striving-in-between, we raise the question, ‘Who is supposed to strive?’ The frictions we found when analysing the policy documents reveal a tendency to understand goals as content for the children to strive for, especially when results are defined as visible changes in learning. This brings us to trouble how striving goals can be achieved. Finally, we explore how to understand the relationship between analysis and results in preschool education, the role of analysis, and what counts as a result. Analysis of results – as collectable outcomes and information – creates friction in relation to analysis for results – as reachable after doing an analysis. We therefore ask what consequences the gathering, or mere summarising, of results might have for practical evaluation work in preschool and what the implications for educational policy might be.

A conclusion of our rhythmical reading is that the policy documents are reduced to fewer pages and that preschool’s particular conditions are fading out in pace with time. When overarching evaluation policies for the school system are framed without taking into account particular conditions for different school forms, there is a risk of narrowing preschool evaluations and, thus, preschool education. The interwoven rhythms of evaluation thus move in a unifying and homogenising direction, in accordance with a school-oriented rhythm based on results as evidence of student outcomes. However, since goal logics differ between striving and achieving goals, we argue for the need to rethink results and outcomes in preschool education in relation to evaluation. An implication is, therefore, that policymakers have to acknowledge the particular conditions, purposes, and tasks of preschool education when policies for educational evaluation are framed. In line with Sundberg (2022), we therefore argue that implementation problems have to be seen as consequences of contradictions, a lack of attention to specific school contexts, and a shortage of involvement of teachers and local actors rather than technical issues to be solved.

Another conclusion is that even though decreased regulation governance may appear as an approximation to each (pre)school’s local needs and reality (Prop. 2009/10:165), our rhythmical analysis questions the presumed autonomy of developing local quality work at the (pre)school. Our results show how emerging frictions between rhythms and logics on a national policy level squeeze preschool education into a learning rhythm. This policy movement brings Swedish preschool closer to the outcome, Anglo-American, and pre-primary approach (Bennet, 2005; Gravis et al., 2022; OECD, 2012), providing less variation and emphasising the qualification dimension of education on behalf of other dimensions, such as socialisation and subjectivation (Biesta, 2011; Haggerty et al., 2020). Our analysis underlines how rhythms at a national policy level, in addition to a local template level, as discussed by Elfström Petterson (2019), produce values affecting what is possible to evaluate. Drawing on Biesta (2016), we therefore argue that evaluation based on a learning rhythm, focusing on results and outcomes, mainly in individual terms, neglects the importance of relationships in educational practices, making it more difficult to explore and evaluate the responsibilities and tasks of educational professionals. Therefore, an implication for educational practices is that the double aspect of goals, framed in this article as goal-in-between, must be considered when preschool education is documented and evaluated. Our findings also indicate the importance of ongoing discussions in the pedagogical field on whether evaluations evaluate what is regarded as value to strive for and not only what is easily measured (c.f. Biesta, 2011). This is also discussed by Schaffar (2021), who warns about the risk of obscuring the value-based dimension when complex open-ended concepts are translated into empirically measurable units. Another crucial issue is whether data, in the first place, can be considered true representations of results and outcomes (Arndt, 2017; Biesta, 2016; Tummons, 2020). An implication for evaluation practices is, therefore, to consider what, when, how, and for what purposes data are used, what data can do, and which role analysis can have when navigating between empirical documentation and value-laden judgements in evaluation work.

Finally, thinking with Tsing (2005), we want to underline the dual function of frictions in (and between) documents. On the one hand, the frictions maintain power dimensions but on the other hand, they create potential openings where change might be possible. The enterprise of a philosophical approach to policy analysis, thinking with the notion of rhythm, has opened up a lively temporal landscape of policy. Drawing on Lefebvre’s (2013) ideas of rhythmanalysis has enabled a nuanced analytical work in which evaluation as a policy phenomenon encompasses both linear and cyclical movements in an entangled landscape. Thinking with Tsing (2015), we can say that policy appears polyphonic, producing encounters between different co-existing stories. Present and past policies meet and coexist, since lines of thought historically return and are re-actualised. Our results show that messiness begins within and between policies, and not only when a well-designed policy “leaves the page and enters the ‘real world’” (Ulmer, 2016: 1392). Our results, therefore, confirm what Ulmer suspects: “perhaps there are policy gaps” (2016: 1392), not only achievement gaps. Thus, policy cannot be understood as linear successions of documents that add on or replace one another. The emerging frictions in the policy landscape connect (pre)school policy rhythms to wider educational and global rhythms. Our critically oriented policy analysis finds cause to invite different stakeholders to understand the effects of policies differently, leading to more acknowledging policies, an argument that resonates with Ulmer’s (2016) findings. Lastly, we argue for the importance of more extensively exploring how educational evaluation is produced by interwoven rhythms on different scales, not only as a policy phenomenon but also in educational practices, as well as its productive effects.