Digital systems for special educational needs documentation in Swedish preschools: new organisational maps for municipalities and professionals

ABSTRACT

This article examines the use of digital documentation systems for preschool special education in Swedish municipalities. Drawing on concepts of organisational learning, the research examines the extent to which municipalities use digital systems and their rationales for such use. A survey of municipalities’ use of digital documentation systems indicated three different system types, and findings from interviews with officials in six municipalities suggest two core rationales that guide documentation systems for special education in preschools. The first rationale focuses on managing knowledge rooted in systems’ formal properties and legal-regulatory frameworks. The second concerns managing professional practice through documentation processes, access, and communication. Digital solutions have consequences for managing and processing documentation and the utilisation of professional knowledge. For the municipality to be a learning organisation, greater interactions are needed between the two, and special educational knowledge needs to play a greater role and be generated and stored through documentation practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Early childhood education; digital systems; special educational needs; documentation; municipalities

Introduction

Special educational needs (SEN) documentation in early childhood education (ECE) systems includes the compilation of diverse information, such as descriptions of educational settings and interactions, planned activities, delegation of responsibilities for meeting children’s needs (Renblad & Brodin, 2014), and screening and practice checklists (OECD, 2015). Such documentation has increased internationally due to increasing requirements for monitoring children’s development and outcomes, and it is used as a policy and quality evaluation tool for improving children’s services, staff performance, and accountability (ibid.). The use of digital systems has also increased in the management and documentation of educational processes and practices in educational (including SEN) contexts. These systems are often applied in quality assurance practices and general educational assessments, such as communication (including between teachers and parents), educational leadership, and documenting processes that focus on individual children (Hatzigianni et al., 2023). Children’s needs are thus assessed for various purposes, and professionals often use digital systems.

Such systems are increasingly used internationally in the construction of individual children’s portfolios (Knauf, 2020b) and instruments that assist teachers to systematically monitor children’s progress (Lyons & Tredwell, 2015). Facilitating large-scale data collection enables comparisons to be made, and hence challenges to or development of contextual professional practice (Roberts-Holmes & Bradbury, 2016). However, the use of digital systems to assess individual children’s needs may also increase both the workload of early childhood teachers and production of documentation (Kim, 2018). Moreover, digital systems may place new demands on teachers (Nuttall et al., 2023) and affect their decision-making and assessment practices (Kim, 2018).

In Sweden, the national ECE curriculum requires the production of records for monitoring and improving children’s “development and learning” (SNAE, 2018, p. 19), but beyond that references to SEN documentation are vague. Hence, SEN documentation practices in ECE settings vary. Some preschools¹ document individual cases while others document general support structures for all children rather than provisions for individual children (Swedish School Inspectorate, 2017). As part of a broadly-understood Nordic model, Swedish preschool education should be imbued with “common values such as well-being, child-centredness, play, learning, professionalism and reducing inequalities” (Nordic Council of Ministers, 2022, p. 44). In such a model, evaluation and assessment (related to education quality) is embedded in holistic approaches focused mostly on learning environments and interactions between individuals and institutional settings rather than assessing individual children (Urban et al., 2023). Defining SEN-related issues in ECE practice is complex because of their contextual nature, but they may be based on the values and competences of staff (Sandberg & Norling, 2021) or practically oriented towards “children who need more support than their friends to be able to participate in the preschool’s activities” (Renblad & Brodin, 2014, p. 389). In Swedish ECE there is a requirement to address all children’s needs (SNAE, 2018), which are seen as contextual and not static (SNAE, 2017). Documentation in such environments raises questions regarding the balance between a focus on the individual and the environment, and the recent digitalisation of SEN documentation in Swedish contexts accentuates such potential tensions. Moreover, digital systems are not neutral in educational contexts since they implicitly mediate “the way educators see” (White et al., 2021, p. 15) and can play important roles in shaping communication related to teachers’ work and practice.

Relatively few studies have addressed specific types of documentation, such as digital SEN documentation in preschool, and there is little knowledge on the types of digital system chosen by municipalities, how they are used, and their implications for SEN practice and individual children. The aim of this article is to address these knowledge gaps by mapping the types of digital system² used in preschools’ SEN documentation and exploring the extent of and rationale behind their use. Three research questions (RQs) are addressed specifically:

• What types of digital system are used for SEN documentation in Swedish municipalities?

• What are the main rationales for selecting digital systems?

• How do digital systems set the parameters for organisational management and professional SEN practices?

Review of the literature

SEN documentation in the digitalisation era

Following recent developments, the Ministry of Education (2017) published a national strategy for the digitalisation of education. Revisions underway are intended to both enhance equality and the use of digital systems to gather more data than was previously feasible, thereby helping municipalities and principals and other staff to develop educational provision, reduce administrative workload and strengthen systemic work focused on quality (SNAE, 2022a). The government’s promotion of digitalisation in education has been reinforced and influenced by the privatisation of the educational sector. However, concerns have been raised, nationally and internationally, regarding the implications of the increasing use and marketisation of digital systems in educational practice (Selwyn et al., 2020). For example, representatives of both state and private elements of the educational sector meet at educational technology trade fairs that provide insights into new digital systems and functions for municipalities and individual teachers, and provide important fora for establishing networks that influence policy development (Player-Koro et al., 2018).

Digital systems are applied in ECE practice and frequently used by teachers for communication and documentation purposes (Knauf, 2020a; Masoumi, 2015). They play increasingly pervasive roles in routine preschool practices (Virtanen, 2018), and paper-based documentation is increasingly being replaced by digital systems to simplify work (Cowan & Flewitt, 2023). In Germany, digital portfolios are reportedly used to save time and improve the clarity of organised material (Knauf, 2020b), while in New Zealand they reportedly offer possibilities for networking for various purposes, such as demonstrating ECE practices to parents and assisting school management (Gallagher, 2018). By collecting, analysing, and presenting content in the form of statistics, digital systems can contribute to the shaping of practice; that is, teachers can adapt their behaviours to match perceived “good” teaching (ibid., p. 41). The use of digital systems for documentation also inevitably changes ECE teachers’ working practices. For example, Nuttall et al. (2023) found that, in ECE centres in Australia and New Zealand, teachers’ use of digital platforms involves multiple activities, such as selecting, archiving, and explaining. The possibilities provided by digital systems in terms of tracking and sharing materials also introduce new work elements, such as requirements for good writing skills and better monitoring and supervision of staff work.

Special educational needs documentation refers to any records pertaining to such needs and efforts made to meet them; however, the associated terminology varies depending on local contexts and regulations. For instance, researchers refer to individual education plans in New Zealand (Mitchell et al., 2010) and individual education programs in the US (Gartin & Murdick, 2005). Variation also exists in SEN discourse, associated with the underlying understandings of educational problems and approaches to address them. One main (“categorical”) perspective is rooted in a medicalised approach to disability, treating special needs as individual problems of specific children. Another (“relational”) perspective is rooted in the view of special needs as constructions resulting from interactions between individuals and their environment (Emanuelsson et al., 2001). Others, recognised by Ahlberg (2015), include an organisation/system perspective that focuses on school as a societal institution, viewing the education system itself as contributing to educational problems (Skrtic, 1991), and a society/structural perspective focused on equality, social justice, and inclusivity in school environments (Haug, 1998).

Heiskanen et al. (2018, 2021) found that most SEN documentation focuses on individual children who are positioned as problematic, and professionals dominate its ownership and voice, rather than parents and children. Other professionals involved include preschool principals, but their roles in its production and use also vary (Vretblom, 2023). Moreover, such documentation may provide incentives for focusing on corrective and normalising aspects rather than pedagogical issues (Palla, 2023). It rarely addresses curricular issues, including evaluations of goals or efforts to meet them (Renblad & Brodin, 2014), rendering wider environmental considerations peripheral to SEN-related responses.

Theoretical framework of organisational learning

Key elements of this study’s theoretical framework are the concepts of an organisation as a holding environment for knowledge and a learning system; that is, the processes pertaining to individual and collective forms of learning in organisations (Argyris & Schön, 1978; 1996, pp. 12, 28; Schön, 1983). These concepts are applied to facilitate examination of the uses and possibilities of digital systems in relation to SEN documentation in the Swedish preschool context. The digital systems used by Swedish municipalities for documenting SEN in preschools are treated here as holding environments. They determine the types of information that are collected, stored, and distributed via the structures they provide, thereby shaping organisations’ professional knowledge. They are also regarded as learning systems because they steer working practices and learning parameters for the professionals involved in SEN documentation processes in preschools.

According to Argyris and Schön (1978, 1996), a holding environment for organisational knowledge includes both forms of knowledge held in the minds of professionals using a system and knowledge held in physical (or virtual) elements of the system itself, which can guide or steer their documentation. Knowledge can be incorporated by an organisation or system through justifications of actions or practical observations of actions (Argyris & Schön, 1996). A SEN documentation system may influence further actions and processes through the templates it provides and the kinds of access it grants to different professionals. Moreover, the definitions of situations that require a response envision outcomes and influence reasoning regarding appropriate actions. Other important factors (related to the underlying perspective of SEN) include the embedded values and assumptions that underpin and drive required changes.

As a holder of knowledge, a system might limit the kind of knowledge that can be retained through the provision of templates for defining situations, appropriate actions, and desired consequences (ibid.). Further, the system’s design and structure will depend on the SEN perspective adopted by its developers (who may or may not be its users) and hence the nature and structure of the knowledge held. The experiences, perspectives, and knowledge of professionals who have access to the system will also influence the SEN documentation via the ways in which they enter, manage, or access information.

Digital systems become elements of municipalities’ organisational “structural solutions” for SEN documentation (Argyris & Schön, 1978, p. 36), and in that sense elements of their learning systems. Through its inclusion of elements of its “organisational structure” (Argyris & Schön, 1996, p. 28), the theoretical framework facilitates exploration of access to these systems and information stored (and required) by its templates, and the effects of such systems on documentation processes. These structures can also limit possibilities for challenging the set up of such systems and the norms and values embedded within them. Professional practitioners must accept these norms and values to some degree if they use the systems because they govern the knowledge that can be stored and communicated.

The learning system rooted in the holding environment of knowledge resulting from professionals’ individual and collective uses of a digital system leads to creation of organisational maps that express current actions and guide future actions (Argyris & Schön, 1978, p. 17). Visible maps may be linked to templates, routines, and legislation, whereas invisible maps include professionals’ knowledge and practiced-based experience (Lindgren, 2016). Both are significant for steering practice and identifying new knowledge that organisations need.

Study context

Reforms of the 1990s led to the decentralisation of state governance and privatisation in the school sector, which greatly increased the autonomy of Sweden’s 290 municipalities in terms of taking decisions related to educational methods, materials, expertise, and systems (Lundahl, 2014). The (pre)school system is governed by both the central state (responsible for the curriculum and teacher education) and municipalities. Municipalities are legally obliged to offer preschool education to all 1- to 5-year-old children, and responsible for providing appropriate levels of support and conditions necessary for implementing the law, and allocation of resources to preschools (ibid.). Municipalities can offer preschools support through child health teams (which are mandatory in compulsory schools) consisting of professionals such as special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs) or psychologists. SENCOs’ work includes efforts to oversee educational environments, investigate pedagogical issues on multiple organisational levels, and act as qualified dialogue partners (Higher Education Ordinance, 1993:100). Preschool principals are responsible for budgets, staffing, and management of the work in their organisations and ensuring that all children’s needs are adequately addressed (Education Act, 2010:800).

The national curriculum governs preschool education for all children, but notes that, “[t]he preschool should pay particular attention to children who need more guidance and stimulation or special support for various reasons” (SNAE, 2018, p. 7). Documentation and follow-up evaluations are regarded as ways to “acquire knowledge of how the quality of the preschool, i.e., its organisation, content and implementation can be developed so that each child is given the best possible conditions for development and learning” (p. 19), thereby enhancing inclusion. The focus is oriented towards assessing the general quality of education provided, directing attention towards staff and principals, rather than assessing goals for individual children to achieve. Preschool teachers are responsible for ensuring that “each child’s development and learning [are] continuously and systematically followed, documented and analysed”, which could be part of and used to enable evaluation of preschools’ provision of opportunities for children “to develop and learn in accordance with” curricular goals (ibid.). However, the curriculum does not specify the types of “particular attention” and “support in preschool” that should be documented beyond these general recommendations. SEN documentation is usually conducted by preschool teachers, principals, or SENCOs (Palla, 2016). Its content and design are often similar to schools’ general templates (ibid.) and include mappings of situations (or individuals) that are of concern, planned efforts to address them, and delegation of responsibilities (Renblad & Brodin, 2014).

Methodology

A mixed-methods sequential explanatory design was applied in this study, whereby results of an initial quantitative data collection phase were used to guide sampling in a second, qualitative, data collection phase (Creswell & Creswell, 2023). First, a survey was conducted (September–November 2022) to map the use of digital systems in SEN documentation in Sweden (addressing RQ1). Second, in-depth interviews were used to examine rationales for selecting digital systems (addressing RQ2 and RQ3). There are 290 municipalities in Sweden, and 13 administrative districts in Stockholm, which were also treated as municipalities for convenience. Initially, all 302 of these municipal bodies were contacted by email and asked the following question: “Is a digital system used for documentation regarding special needs in your public preschools and, if so, what system?” This data collection phase ended after three email reminders. In total, 274 municipalities responded, and their responses led to a detailed mapping of digital documentation use in Swedish municipalities.

Following the mapping, two key criteria were used to identify a sample of six municipalities for deeper exploration of their use of digital systems for SEN documentation through interviews with relevant professionals: (1) type of digital system used, and (2) number of children attending public preschools in the municipality and, hence, being affected by the use of such systems, an important dimension included in the sampling criteria.

At the pilot stage, one large municipality was selected for interview to assess who could answer the research questions, how well the interview guide addressed the research questions, and how many participants from each municipality were needed to explore systematically the issues raised. At the end of this stage, five further municipalities were identified and three key informants were selected from each of them. Thus, in total 18 interviews were conducted from September 2022 to January 2023. All interviewees held positions related to preschool education, special education, and digitalisation.

The interviews were semi-structured and intended to elicit information on the municipal interviewees’ views and practices associated with a digital system’s uses for SEN documentation. Thus, individual interviews were preferred to focus group interviews because they can cover a broader spectrum of themes (Guest et al., 2017). The interview guide explored: properties of the system used, reasons for selecting it, the perceived purpose and implementation of documentation, and the positions and roles of professionals working with it. The interview guide was adapted to various degrees in the interviews in accordance with the interviewees’ areas of expertise. The interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and lasted 30–50 minutes.

The acquired material was analysed in two stages. First, following Bowen (2009), I systematically reviewed websites of the systems used by municipalities to obtain information on each type and its users to complete the mapping of the use of digital systems for SEN documentation. Second, I analysed the interview data using an inductive approach, whereby all interview transcripts were initially read to explore their meaning and generate first-order concepts (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2014). Next, the concepts and corresponding extracts were reviewed several times to identify similar and different meanings. The process continued by connecting several first-order concepts to larger units of meaning, which constituted second-order themes. Following Gioia et al. (2013), I then explored theme features to construct categories within a broader narrative of municipalities’ descriptions and uses of digital systems. The categories were interpreted using Argyris and Schön’s (1996) conceptual framework; that is, viewing digital systems as holding environments for knowledge that frames management and professional practice. Examples of the concepts, themes, and categories are presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Examples of first-order concepts, a second-order theme, and a category obtained from analysis of the interview transcripts.

First-order concepts	Second-order theme	Category
Systems offer an empty space to be filled
Systems are not pedagogically designed	Disconnected from education
Systems are exclusively for documentation		System as a container
A system is not for social relations	Purpose of system

The transcripts were then reviewed a final time to find similar or different meanings of the identified categories. This led to the identification of two rationales applied by participants when explaining their reasons for selecting a digital system and its primary purposes: managing knowledge and managing professional practice (Table 2).

Table 2. Examples of a category, illustrative excerpts, and the identified rationales.

Category	Excerpt	Rationales
System as a container	“If you have filed them [documents] and registered them so they’re searchable, in a similar way. That’s what is intended.” (M1:2) “[Y]ou can give entry, depending on the access. And that’s also a thing … we can steer it so we know which persons and roles should have access to certain things.” (M2:1)	Managing knowledge Managing professional practice

Ethical considerations

During the study design and data collection stages, I followed the ethical guidelines of the Swedish Research Council (SRC, 2017) aimed at protecting research participants. Each interviewee was fully informed about the study objectives and gave their written consent for participation. Interactions with interviewees were voluntary and underpinned by the principles of integrity, respect, reflexivity, and transparency. The recording of the data ensured anonymity for both municipalities (referred to by the abbreviation M and a number) and of individual interviewees (referred to by numbers). In addition, the interview guide was carefully designed to elicit high quality data without the possibility of compromising the anonymity or professional integrity of participants. As a former special educator in the Swedish preschool system and currently a researcher, consideration of ethics and reflexivity also focuses attention on the positionality and dual insider/outsider status of the researcher (Merriam et al., 2001). Personal professional experience is advantageous because it informs what questions to ask during interviews; however, it also risks applying assumptions about practice to the interview situation. So, throughout the collection and analysis of data, continuous ethical and professional reflection allow “sound judgments” to be made within the “situated nature of practical decision making” during research practice (Hammersley & Traianou, 2012, p. 7). Reflection is also important during the data analysis process; that is, careful and explicit methodology aims at an interpretation that reflects interviewees’ intended meaning. Reflexivity aims to ensure validity.

Finally, the article includes full names of the digital systems; however, only the company or digital system names appear in the mapping element of the study results. Anonymising the connection between digital systems and municipalities was necessary to ensure both the anonymity of interviewees and municipalities and avoid appearing to advertise companies and features of their digital systems.

Results

The first part of this first section presents a mapping of the municipalities’ use of digital systems for SEN documentation. The second part presents results obtained from interviews with key informants within the six municipalities.

Mapping digitalisation systems in Swedish municipalities

Of the 274 municipalities responded to the survey questions, 122 reported using one or more digital systems for SEN documentation, two were procuring one, and several expressed future plans to use the same digital system as other schools in that municipality. In total, 13 digital systems, listed in Table 3, were used by the 122 municipalities (in autumn 2022). Nine used different systems for different users, which could include documentation related to the same child, e.g., one system for preschool staff and another for children’s health teams. In total, 131 digital systems were being used by the municipalities. In cases where a municipality used two systems (one for preschools and another for child health care), I present the system used by preschool staff (see Figure 1).

Table 3. Systems used for SEN documentation by Swedish municipalities (M).

General education platform (and number of M using it)	Document and case handling (and number of M using it)	Medical records for student/child health (and number of M using it)
Unikum (35M)	DF respons (8M)	Prorenata (43M)
InfoMentor (3M)	Platina (2M)	PMO (28M)
SchoolSoft (3M)	Abou/Evolution (2M)
Edwise (2M)	Ciceron (1M)
Vklass (2M)
Quiculum (1M)
Skolplattformen (1M)

Total number of systems for each of the three types used in municipalities (in the above order, left to right): N = 47, N = 13, and N = 71.

Three types of system were identified, based on their uses and target users. General education platform systems, used by 47 municipalities with 88,000 children registered in preschool (SNAE, 2022b), are intended to cover the entire school system, often with separate sub-modules for preschool, compulsory school, and upper secondary school. The whole system can be used for documentation, and the websites of two systems (Unikum and SchoolSoft) explicitly state that this includes SEN documentation.

Generic documentation systems, including document and case handling systems, were used by the smallest number of municipalities (N = 13, 36,000 children; SNAE, 2022b). These are constructed to store, organise, and disseminate documentation and information in an accessible manner for several elements of the welfare sector. One of these systems (DF respons) provides options for more specific approaches; that is, “modules” designed (for instance) for organising human resources, social planning, or school/preschool purposes, including a specific module for SEN documentation.

Medical records for student/child health systems are designed for use by professionals working in general medical care or the health of children in the school system. These were the digital systems most commonly used by Swedish municipalities (N = 71, approximately 92,000 children registered in preschools; SNAE, 2022b).

So, despite the difference (24) in number of municipalities using the medical records for student/child health and general education platform types of system, they have similar total numbers of enrolled children. In addition, some geographical clustering of municipalities (e.g., urban or rural) using the three types of system can be seen (Figure 1). These results provide an overview of systems used for SEN documentation in Sweden and points of departure for future inquiries and discussion.

Figure 1. System types, number of municipalities, and number of children in public preschools in the municipalities, 2022.

The procurement criteria applied to systems for preschool SEN documentation were often focused on including preschools within a system for all schools rather than on meeting preschools’ specific needs. Only one of the six municipality had selected a system specifically for preschools rather than a system used for all schools. The six municipalities included in this study had used a digital system for SEN documentation for periods ranging from a few months to seven years. Professionals’ access to the systems also varied among municipalities. Principals always had access but the access of preschool teachers and SENCOs varied. Functional variation was also evident, including being able to read, write, and edit documents, accessing documents regarding provisions for children in a single preschool, and viewing documents covering preschool procedures and children located in substantial geographical areas.

Managing knowledge and professional practice

The interview analysis identified two rationales for municipalities’ use of digital systems within the organisation and guidance for administration/management and documentation practice. One, managing knowledge, focuses on saving, storing, and organising SEN documentation in line with relevant legislation. The other, managing professional practice, is based on a system’s utility for guiding processes, facilitating communication, and providing a work space within which several professional groups can organise knowledge. These two rationales have complementary and often overlapping dimensions that shape the municipalities’ digital learning systems regarding SEN documentation. These are described in more detail in the following sections, which report findings related to each of the rationales and associated categories.

Managing knowledge

Legal safety

All six sampled municipalities pay attention to confidentiality and procedures for handling and safeguarding sensitive information held in their digital systems. Moreover, security was the most commonly mentioned reason for opting for a digital system. Specific reasons for implementing digital systems included solving problems associated with the coming into effect of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018 (M2:2). Legislation thus played an important role in the procurement process. Interviewees also mentioned that digital systems help users to follow relevant legislation by facilitating accountability: “It’s safe, it’s secure, and we fulfil legislation” (M1:3) and “only the right people have access to it” (M4:1).

Digital systems provide important security and insurance protection for the municipalities’ SEN documentation. The municipalities trust these systems to do the “right” thing regarding SEN documentation and feel that communication within them is safe. For staff, this may include confirmation that important records have been written, for children and parents it includes the ability to trace documentation, and for the municipality it includes the ability to access and assess records: “the School Inspectorate came, had a look and then you saw, oh! Here we have special support but no documentation. No, no, that is not allowed” (M6:3).

Saving and storage

Saving documentation digitally is seen to benefit both practitioners and the public, especially in combination with searchability and accessibility, as it can prevent loss of documents and enable their quick retrieval. Using digital systems to store documentation has practical benefits as it avoids the need for physical (often scattered) storage spaces; unlike previous means, such systems can also organise storage methods: “we don’t have to save a bunch of copies in different places as we used to. We had the G: files, we had them in binders. Everyone in the preschools departments downloaded them into their own personal … like storage spaces” (M1:2). The systems also offer the ability to upload, access and publish documentation at any time and from anywhere: “It’s in the computer, and you can like … you always have it with you” (M1:1).

In addition, saving documents enables municipalities to collate statistics that provide overviews of preschools’ digital system use, number of SEN documents in the system, and whether they address similar situations and issues. However, several interviewees expressed the view that statistics do not provide indications of the quality of SEN support or the number of children needing such support in practice: “You can see things at an aggregate level. It may say something, but it’s quite ineffective if you don’t get any deeper” (M4:2).

Handling documents digitally also facilitates administrative requirements, such as signing the right document and verifying that the correct template has been used, that were previously addressed manually: “Now we handle a digital chain instead … for example signing a document. We used to sign a lot of papers previously. Why did we do that? Well, we signed to verify that it was the right paper, that it was the original. Today the verification comes from the process in the system, that the right documentation has been used when making decisions” (M1:2).

Systems as containers

Several interviewees defined the system used, and what it can or cannot offer. An aspect frequently discussed by representatives of several municipalities is that the system used is considered to be “an empty space” (M3:2), “just a container” (M2:1), and “not for building relations” (M5:1). According to these interviewees, the systems focus attention merely on ensuring that the right documents have been correctly handled and saved; they do not address the complex issues or people involved: “XX is just a documentation system, nothing else. So, there’s nothing pedagogical or anything like that” (M5:1).

Some interviewees also expressed the view that the system is merely a receptacle and handling it is difficult and requires clear directions: “XX itself is just a can … but it’s how we use it that is … So you cannot just release a system freely … you must have some guidance and direction in its use” (M4:2). An important corollary to the notion of guidance is recognition of the need to take responsibility for documentation rather than relying on the system to make decisions: “Well, this might have become an … expectation. I think for the system to almost solve this. That you could like tick some boxes and everything is finished but … there’s no system that works like that for these types of documentation” (M2:1).

Digital systems are viewed as separate from content, which is imperative when addressing concerns regarding a system or what it includes: “Okay, we [the municipality] take care of the system, but the content is another matter. It’s easy to … well, it runs the risk of thinking that some questions are about the system, but they’re not. They’re questions regarding how practitioners should handle documentation” (M4:2). The system does not remove the necessity for professionals to decide what should be documented regarding individuals, groups, environments, or organisations, neither does it address different points of view. Such decisions must be handled in isolation from the digital system, even if it dictates how professionals enter information.

Managing professional practice

The managing professional practice rationale covers practices at both municipality and preschool levels. Depending on how the system operates, grants access, or allows communication, it can act as either an enabler or a restrictor.

Cross-level working processes

At the municipality level, the systems guide the documentation process through decisions regarding what templates to use or include, and who should have access to them. This involves “a digital chain” (M2:1) with checkpoints inserted by the municipality, including signing SEN documents, to verify that requirements have been meet. At the preschool level, the systems offer convenient templates for practitioners and clearly indicate both the required information and associated responsibilities for professional groups. Moreover, they can guide professionals when framing specific situations that require SEN documentation and ensuring that templates ask “deep questions” (M6:1), thereby slowing the process and preventing professionals from completing documentation too rapidly. Such slowing can provide time for collective thinking and analysis.

The systems provide municipalities with overviews of numbers of ongoing SEN cases, as well as their geographical distribution, and facilitate allocation of workloads to SENCOs and other professionals. Similarly, they can provide preschools with overviews of staffing needs and facilitate work planning, including documentation related to the preschool curriculum, for which, “according to the curriculum it is only the principal and the preschool teachers    who are responsible” (M3:1).

Through their procurement processes the municipalities have chosen systems that guide professional practice and provide possibilities in terms of SEN documentation. They take into consideration factors such as system standardisation (e.g., scope for modification) and whether a candidate system generates templates by itself or the municipalities have to produce their own. Another feature of the systems noted by some respondents is that they orientate the documentation and associated work processes towards individual children. This precludes, or at least complicates, inclusion of other potentially important contextual factors, such as group or organisational issues and the preschool environment. The lack of digital space for such matters was noted by respondents when describing system functions: “ we’ve had many discussions regarding this and how we should do our group-mappings, and the lack of a forum for the principals for organisational level mapping. This is not offered in XX so there are two parts missing actually” (M4:3). Lack of storage space was solved in two municipalities by saving relevant group-level and organizational records (which are important for all organisations, including preschools) in another digital system or in paper form.

Access and expertise

Professionals’ access to digital systems is governed by municipality decisions and the mode of access allowed (such as reading or editing), which may be profession-dependent and, partly at least, dictated by responsibilities stipulated in the curriculum: “We have the instructions, for children who need special support, that there must be an accountable preschool teacher … who does the documentation, but the work team should be included. It’s not the SENCO who does the documentation, because the preschool teacher has responsibility for the education [including] that of children who need special educational support” (M3:1). The Education Act also steers access, by assigning overall responsibility for preschool education to principals, as heads of the organisation, whereas SENCO responsibilities might be delegated by a municipality or principal. However, professionals’ access to digital systems is clearly crucial for entering, retrieving, or changing documented information. Thus, lack of appropriate access for relevant professionals can be problematic for preschools, as systems can render professionals intermediaries who must distribute SEN documentation to those who need it but are unable to access it: “ so I try to mediate it [information] to the pedagogues. Because they cannot access their own action plans later on” (M5:2). Lack of access also prevents some professionals from making potentially valuable contributions. For example, SENCOs could use their knowledge to illuminate some aspects of special educational needs or provisions in preschools: “ they [the administration] are referring to GDPR and the legislation. So, I won’t be able to access the personal information regarding children that I don’t work with. I understand that. But I wish that the XX system could be more flexible and allow connections to a preschool in some way” (M4:3). Other professionals such as preschool teachers could contribute knowledge regarding specific children, as they are “closest to” the children (M5:3).

Communication via the system

By using a digital system a municipality can ensure that it records professionals’ communications regarding SEN documentation by stipulating, for example, that it must be used for SEN-related emails, meeting reminders, records waiting to be addressed, or upcoming evaluations. Such communication within the system is safe, whereas previous pre-digital routines were seen as lacking security: “Sometimes I could get documents by email … and that’s not legally secure” (M6:1). Preschools also need secure forms for the practice-related communication of professionals.

Most respondents also noted that the templates provided by the systems required use of “professional language” (M5:1) that is “ethically correct” (M1:1) because it could affect future actions: “how I express myself also affects my actions. But it’s difficult to write ethically correctly” (M5:2). Awareness of the different SEN approaches is also required when using the systems for SEN documentation: “It’s an empty space, we need to fill it with support so we end up with equality when we start … it’s not categorical but relational approaches that we need to work towards” (M3:2).

These ethical considerations regarding practice and possible approaches prompted the professionals involved to discuss semantic aspects to a much greater extent than before digital SEN documentation. Discussions also covered the sheer amount of documentation produced and the future role of written documents: “I feel that it’s incredibly important how one expresses things in writing, because the children are supposed to be able to retrieve and read it when they’re older … or parents … so it must feel like it’s good information that’s written there” (M2:3).

Discussion and conclusions

This exploration into the use of digital systems for SEN documentation indicates that Swedish municipalities use three types of system, and their choices are guided by two main rationales: managing knowledge and managing professional practice. In terms of managing knowledge, the three types offer similar possibilities for secure storage of SEN documentation, accessibility, and provision of relevant statistical information. However, in terms of managing professional practice they offer differing possibilities. Each system type might suggest or imply which professionals are responsible for SEN documentation and hence should have access. However, variation among systems of the same type (and the SEN perspective embedded within them) may also influence layout and templates in ways that affect the way in which professionals use and value the system. This may then affect or reinforce understandings of educational problems and ways to address them.

The expansion of digital SEN documentation in preschool practice is apparent in the study’s mapping of Swedish municipalities, although it is not as widespread in the rural parts of mid/northern Sweden. Most municipalities use medical records for student/child health systems, which may require the input of expertise beyond preschools’ own knowledge and skills base. Similar numbers of children attend preschools in municipalities that use general education platforms, which are set up with baseline insider knowledge. The more open document and case handling systems appear to use either practice, that is, drawing on inside or outsider knowledge and expertise. Municipalities’ choices regarding the three identified types of system reflect the government’s promotion of the use of systems for practical and administrative purposes (SNAE, 2022a) and suggest that digital documentation is prominent and increasingly replacing paper-based documentation (Cowan & Flewitt, 2023).

In accordance with the findings of Knauf (2020a) and Masoumi (2015), this study suggests that Swedish municipalities use digital systems for SEN-related communication purposes as a result of their ease of use, safety, and security. Further, in line with Kim (2018), it suggests that digital systems affect documentation (and assessment) practices depending on who has access to them and the types of access granted. Participants acknowledged and discussed the need to write in a professional manner because digital systems provide a public forum and highlight new aspects of the documentation process (Nuttall et al., 2023). Producing digital SEN documentation in a professional manner and translating information into statistics could also contribute to producing “good” teachers (Gallagher, 2018). However, the municipalities pay less attention to the potential impact of digital systems as instruments of governance that are neither neutral in terms of communication between professionals (White et al., 2021) nor value-free in relation to steering information needed and retrieved, in what ways, and by whom (Argyris & Schön, 1996). On the contrary, digital systems are viewed as “containers” that are to be used by professionals for the SEN documentation process with little concern for whether or how they affect education (Selwyn et al., 2020).

The two rationales identified for the sampled municipalities to embrace digital documentation, managing knowledge and managing professional practice, suggest that digital systems collect and hold information of multiple kinds, with varying purposes. In so doing, they shape the kind of professional knowledge required by dictating what information and knowledge must be collected, stored, and distributed during the SEN documentation processes (Argyris & Schön, 1996). Moreover, employing new digital tools to solve technical or administrative problems may create new problems, as noted by Lipshitz (2000). As holding environments of particular types of knowledge, digital systems may limit possibilities for applying SEN perspectives other than the categorical in professional practice, particularly (but not solely) regarding SEN documentation. Other perspectives that frame special education documentation practices are more difficult to fit within the templates of digital systems. This was acknowledged by interviewees in this study, who discussed the complexity of the digital processes that tend to favour managing knowledge over managing professional practice. Schön’s dilemma of “rigor or relevance” (1983, p. 42) aptly describes the contrast between viewing systems as standing on the “hard ground” of legal safety, offering technical and “structural solutions” for storing, saving, and disseminating knowledge, versus the “swampy lowland” of professional practice where the challenging issues of norms and values are not easily accounted for within digital environments.

In addition to selecting particular digital systems for different reasons, the municipalities’ distribution of access clearly shapes system content and associated organisational changes. Participants in the documentation process become parts of the learning system structured by the digital systems, which shapes their working processes (Argyris & Schön, 1996). As a result of being granted access, various professionals participate in the management and production of SEN documentation and creation of visible templates, and are also able to engage in discussions and describe their own experiences behind such documentation. This creates invisible maps in the SEN documentation process (Lindgren, 2016) by including and/or excluding professional knowledge that could be useful at the organisational level in municipalities. The degree of access influences which professionals contribute to SEN documentation processes and, by extension, the type of organisational learning and nature of SEN knowledge that is available in preschool practice.

As this study shows, municipalities’ choice of SEN documentation systems guides the documentation process and organisational knowledge that is stored and used by preschool professional practitioners. In using these systems, the two rationales emphasise different types of approach to knowledge in relation to SEN, which are differentially strengthened and constrained by the systems’ digital nature. Balancing management of knowledge and professional practice in SEN documentation in preschools is difficult and at times challenging. The findings indicate that digital systems challenge and constrain professionals’ practice in both ways of working and SEN perspectives as a result of the (categorical) information that must be entered and stored. Through interactions between embedded rationales, these ways of organising and conducting documentation can potentially lead to organisational learning. Both the constraints and the advantages of digital systems can be addressed in relation to professional practice norms, expertise included in the documentation process, and relational perspectives. Moreover, by using both visual and invisible maps made of professionals’ learning, important knowledge can be acquired that contributes to new organisational maps that lead toward future inclusive practices and actions (Argyris & Schön, 1978).

Numerous respondents participated in this quantitative survey and representatives of the sampled municipalities provided knowledge about the rationales behind their choice of digital system. However, including more municipalities could offer cumulative knowledge that would broaden representation and enhance the exploration of digital SEN documentation in Sweden. In addition, to learn more about the complex issues and relationships within digital SEN documentation, studies on concrete documentation practices in preschools are required.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Preschool refers to coherent education for 1- to 5-year-old children, governed in Sweden by a specific national curriculum.

2 The term “digital system” encompasses categories such as “digital tools”, “digital platforms”, “instruments” and “software”, and refers to any digital system used for documenting educational and special education needs.