Norm-critique as revitalizer of gender equality? Local policy actors’ norm-critical understandings of Swedish preschool’s gender-equality mission

ABSTRACT

During the last decade, the notion of norm-critique has had an impact on Swedish educational policymaking, including the gender-equality mission of the Swedish preschool. The aim is to better understand and problematize the relationship between gender equality, as formal curricular content, and norm-critique, as informal curricular content, in educational policymaking in the field of Swedish preschool. The paper asks: What understandings are ascribed to the notion of norm-critique in relation to Swedish preschool’s gender-equality mission? Theoretically, the paper draws on the concept of epistemological understandings and the dynamic between epistemologies of gender equality and norm-critique. In terms of materials and methods, three focus group discussions with 13 preschool managers, here conceptualized as local policy actors, were analysed. The main finding is that these local policy actors view the notion of norm-critique as a revitalizer of the gender-equality mission of the Swedish preschool. A first conclusion is that the notion of norm-critique enhances the gender-equality mission because it might help local policy actors to view gender equality from a broader perspective and in relation to other, intersecting causes of inequality. A second, and somewhat contradictory, conclusion is that the notion of norm-critique risks undermining the gender-equality mission by replacing it.

KEYWORDS:

• Norm-critique
• gender equality
• formal and informal curriculum
• local policy actors
• early childhood education and care

Introduction

Equality in and through education is a global concern (UNESCO, 2016). In the Nordic countries, it has been linked to the historical development of the welfare state (Brunila & Kallioniemi, 2018). In the Nordic welfare state(s), the promotion of gender equality in education, including early childhood education and care (hereafter preschool¹), stands out as one of the most central equality issues. The need for gender equality is a well-established goal in educational policymaking and is formally acknowledged in the Nordic ‘educare’ tradition and its preschool curricula (Government Offices of Sweden, 2017; Heikkilä, 2020; Warin, 2014).

Despite the high priority given to gender-equality concerns, it has been generally acknowledged in previous research that the gender-equality mission (jämställdhetsuppdrag) of Nordic preschools is difficult both to understand and to implement (Edström, 2010; Heikkilä, 2020; Lind-Valdan, 2014). Furthermore, gender-equality work (jämställdhetsarbete) in preschool is filled with gendered problems and tensions, such as counteracting resistance among educational leadership, making gender-equality work age relevant, and maintaining such work over time (Edström, 2010; Frödén, 2019; Heikkilä, 2016). Therefore, working for gender equality in preschool is a challenging task for key educational actors, who range from ‘politicians and professionals at the national, regional, and school-owner […] level to the school and preschool level’ (Forsberg et al., 2017, p. 362). Thus, how such actors, conceptualized in this paper as local policy actors (Ball et al., 2012), understand their gender-equality mission is of crucial importance for the status of the gender-equality mission and its further implementation (Axelsson & Frödén, 2021; Heikkilä, 2020).

The Swedish case is particularly interesting because its preschool curriculum stands out in a Nordic context regarding the role of local policy actors in gender-equality policymaking. In the latest version of Curriculum for the Preschool (Skolverket, 2018), the gender-equality mission is expressed in a slightly different way compared to both previous Swedish preschool curricula and contemporary Nordic preschool curricula.² Since 2018, preschool principals³ have been responsible for ‘including work on gender equality in systematic work on quality’ (Skolverket, 2018, p. 21). This means that the gender-equality mission has been partially redirected: from a child- and teacher-oriented pedagogical issue into a policy-oriented problem targeting local policy actors (Axelsson & Frödén, 2021). However, neither previous research nor contemporary policy documents provide local policy actors with sufficient information about how to implement their gender-equality mission (Edström, 2010; Skolinspektionen, 2017). Therefore, more knowledge is needed about how local policy actors, who are responsible for implementing preschool’s gender-equality mission, understand this mission.

The influence of norm-critique in Swedish educational policymaking

In this paper, local policy actors’ understandings of their gender-equality mission in preschool is analysed in relation to one of the most intense educational policy debates during the last decade in Sweden: the introduction and dissemination of the notion of norm-critique (normkritik⁴). The aim is to better understand and problematize the relationship between gender equality, as formal curricular content, and norm-critique, as informal curricular content, in educational policymaking in the field of Swedish preschool. This dynamic is further explained below.

Since 2010, norm-critical pedagogy (normkritisk pedagogik) and norm-critical perspectives (normkritiska perspektiv) have had an impact on Swedish educational policymaking – including preschool (Björkman et al., 2021; Qvarsebo, 2021). Although the notion of norm-critique seems to be most influential in Sweden (Hill, 2021), it has also had an impact and is now employed in other Nordic countries (Reimers, 2020). The notion of norm-critique can be understood as both an activist and academic school of thought and a set of pedagogical ideas and practices aiming ‘to make visible inequalities and to bring about change’ (Reimers, 2020, p. 175). Its overall pedagogical aim seems to be to criticize norms that have exclusionary effects (Langmann & Månsson, 2016), thereby counteracting discrimination and encouraging equality in educational settings, as well as throughout society more broadly (Reimers, 2020).

In contrast to gender equality, the notion of norm-critique has not been incorporated into formal preschool or school curricula (Arneback & Jämte, 2020), a curriculum being the ‘consensually constructed political document which identifies the steering values in education’ (Norberg & Johansson, 2010, p. 328). Despite this, norm-critical perspectives have been discussed and recommended across a large body of Swedish national policy documents, manuals, and handbooks published by government agencies, educators, and NGOs (Bromseth & Darj, 2010; Gunnarsson, 2022; Hill, 2021; Skolverket, 2009). The notion of norm-critique is thus non-formulated in formal curricula. To risk using a well-worn expression, it might therefore be argued that the notion of norm-critique has become part of the ‘hidden’ Swedish curriculum (Portelli, 1993). This argument finds some support in previous research, since norm-critical perspectives are explicitly recommended by official educational authorities and used in popular handbooks produced for preschool (Hill, 2021; Qvarsebo, 2021). This paper sheds light on this educational policymaking paradox, in which the notion of norm-critique is not formulated in ‘formal’ curricula but is influential as an ‘informal’ source of inspiration for educational policymaking (cf. Print, 2007).

How the Swedish educational system has been affected by what Alm and Laskar (2017) have called ‘the norm-critical turn’ has not been widely researched. So far, there have been very few empirical studies of how norm-critique is understood and practised in educational contexts (see e.g. Hill, 2021; Qvarsebo, 2021). This means that the role of norm-critique in educational policymaking is unclear, despite it being highly influential, especially in relation to the well-established gender-equality mission of Swedish preschool (Qvarsebo, 2021; Vallberg Roth, 2006; Wernersson, 2009). Therefore, this paper is devoted to exploring the role of norm-critique in educational policymaking in relation to gender equality. Theoretically and methodologically, this is achieved by analysing if, and if so how, local policy actors understand their gender-equality mission in Swedish preschool, considering the influence of the notion of norm-critique. The specific research question guiding the paper is: What understandings are ascribed to the notion of norm-critique in relation to Swedish preschool’s gender-equality mission?

The paper is structured as follows. In the next section, the theoretical perspectives are presented. Then, the methods employed for data collection and analysis are introduced. Thereafter follows a presentation and analysis of the empirical findings. Finally, the paper ends with a concluding discussion in which the notion of norm-critique is problematized in relation to its potential for enhancing and/or undermining the gender-equality mission of Swedish preschool.

Epistemologies embedded in understandings of gender equality and norm-critique

Theoretically, this paper draws upon educational policy analysis and feminist studies. In the empirical analysis, I use the concept of epistemological understandings. In a comparative study of gender-equality work in Nordic preschools, Heikkilä (2020, p. 4) defines this concept as a set of ‘approaches to and awareness of gender knowledge (both in relation to curriculum issues and gender knowledge)’. In this paper, the concept of epistemological understandings is used to identify local policy actors’ views, experiences, and ideals in which the notion of norm-critique serves as a source of inspiration for understanding their gender-equality mission in preschool. This means that I strive to take their perspective on how they understand the dynamic between gender equality and norm-critique, since, as local policy actors, they play an active role in the understanding and implementation of national curricula at the local level (Ball et al., 2012).

Furthermore, I view gender equality and the notion of norm-critique as a dynamic of overlapping and competing epistemologies. As pointed out earlier, gender equality holds a well-established position in educational policymaking and is part of the formal content of the Swedish preschool curriculum. More important, from a theoretical and political point of view, is the fact that gender equality, in a Swedish context, draws mainly on modernist, structuralist, and liberal feminist understandings of gender and power relations. Hence, the epistemology of gender equality has been criticized in poststructuralist and postcolonial-inspired feminist research. For example, Martinsson et al. (2016) underline that the history and international promotion of Swedish gender equality politics and policy have made gender equality into a ‘hegemonic norm’ (p. 1) and a ‘nationalist trait’ (p. 3). They also criticize the Swedish gender equality project for being (too) consensus-oriented, heteronormative, dualistic, and non-intersectional. A similar argument is made by Lykke (2016), who, in a case study on how the Swedish notion of gender equality is upheld outside Sweden, analyses ‘gender pedagogy’ in Swedish preschool as a signifier of ‘Swedishness’. Although I find this critique of Swedish gender-equality policymaking striking, it is important to underline that gender equality is more than a problematic Swedish self-image. It is also a positive legal and social norm, which in many respects has been a prerequisite for achieving greater gender equality across a broad range of educational settings (Wernersson, 2009).

Different from gender equality, norm-critique is not a policy field in its own right. It is, firstly, a pedagogic tradition underpinned by critical pedagogy, queer theory, anti-oppressive pedagogy, feminist deconstructionism, and intersectional theories. However, this pedagogic tradition is labelled differently by different authors; for example, norm-critical pedagogy (normkritisk pedagogik), norm-consciousness (normmedvetenhet), and norm-creativity (normkreativitet) (Björkman et al., 2021). Secondly, the notion of norm-critique has developed into a wider phenomenon since it has ‘travelled’ from a more pedagogy-centred context into a variety of advocacy and policy contexts, such as feminist activism (Johansson Wilén, 2019), research funding (Vinnova, 2021), and educational policymaking (Hill, 2021). Thirdly, the notion of norm-critique can be seen as a poststructuralist social theory, with implications for how educational research is conducted (Reimers, 2020). Altogether, norm-critique comes in many versions and is given different meanings, which are likely to have consequences for if, and if so how, it is used for understanding and implementing the gender-equality mission of Swedish preschool.

Previous research has criticized norm-critical pedagogics and perspectives for being preoccupied with individual identities and reproducing the same dichotomies that it claims to deconstruct (Qvarsebo, 2021), and for being (too) moralistic and normative by constantly producing ‘new’ norms (Langmann & Månsson, 2016). Furthermore, several commentators have claimed that the radical and critical agenda of the notion of norm-critique has been downplayed as it has become popularized and transferred to policymaking, training programmes, and manual-based methods (Bromseth & Sörensdotter, 2013; Reimers, 2020). Overall, the epistemological dynamic between gender equality and the notion of norm-critique outlined here reveal similarities, differences, and somewhat conflicting views and aims, and I will return to these in the concluding discussion of this paper.

Materials and methods

The data consists of three focus group discussions conducted in 2018, with a total of 13 participants from three Swedish municipalities. Focus groups can be used to generate multifaceted research material regarding attitudes to and understandings of complex and ambiguous phenomena (Powell & Single, 1996). This is the strength of focus groups, but it is also their weakness. The knowledge produced in a research-led focus group discussion is local and contextual, centres around the participants’ attitudes towards and understandings of a certain phenomenon (rather than their actual behaviours and practices), and is not particularly generalizable (Wilkinson, 1998). Originally, the data was produced for a research project analysing how local policy actors understand their gender-equality mission in preschool, considering the recent revisions to the preschool curriculum (see Axelsson & Frödén, 2021). When re-reading the data, I noticed that the participants frequently talked about ‘norms’ and ‘norm-critique’, although the initial data collection process was not designed to capture the dynamics between gender equality and norm-critique. This finding motivated me to write this paper, which can be seen as a re-analysis of previously generated data. As underlined by Wästerfors et al. (2014, p. 6), ‘old’ data might not fit perfectly with ‘new’ research objects. On the other hand, ‘surprising findings and fascinating sidetracks are more likely if analysis is performed more than once’.

The municipalities and the focus group participants were recruited based on strategic and convenience sampling, and seeking heterogeneity (Suri, 2011). All the municipalities had a declared interest in working systematically with gender equality in preschools. Municipalities 1 and 2 are relatively small and semi-rural, while Municipality 3 is a larger city. Formal cooperation was already in place with Municipalities 1 and 2 (through research-based support programmes), while Municipality 3 was recruited by means of a formal request. The participants, labelled preschool managers in the empirical analysis, operate at a variety of levels within the municipal organization (see Table 1). In Municipalities 1 and 2, I aimed to recruit all the preschool managers (roles A, B, and C). In both these focus groups, all the preschool managers in each municipality, apart from one principal in each municipality, participated. In Municipality 3, operations managers (role D) rather than principals were recruited due to the size of the municipality. Operations managers only exist in Municipality 3, and the title refers to a position in the municipal organization ‘between’ the head of department and the principals. Due to a request from the gatekeeper in Municipality 3, one preschool principal and one investigator working within the childcare and educational department (role E) participated in this focus group. Of the 13 participants, ten were women.

Table 1. Information about the focus groups and the focus group participants.

Participants’ roles	Number of participants (N=13)
	Focus group 1	Focus group 2	Focus group 3
A. Chair of childcare and education political committee	1	1	1
B. Head of childcare and education department	1	1	1
C. Principals	2	1	1
D. Operations managers	-	-	2
E. Investigator	-	-	1
Number of participants in each focus group	4	3	6

The research participants received written information about the purpose and implementation of the study. I started each focus group discussion by going through the information and ended it by collecting the participants’ written informed consent statements. In accordance with a basic research ethics approach (Swedish Research Council, 2017), these statements declare that: participation is voluntary and can be withdrawn at any time; the material is to be used for research purposes only; all personal data will be treated confidentially.

The focus group discussions were conducted at the municipal administration offices. The research participants seemed to be engaged with the subject and shared experiences of difficulties as well as accomplishments related to their roles as preschool managers. This indicates that the power asymmetries in the focus groups were not too great, which is an important feature for stimulating a fruitful discussion (Wilkinson, 1998). The conversations were sound recorded, lasted between 40 and 60 minutes, and were based on a semi-structured discussion guide. Initially, I asked the participants to reflect upon two quotes from the preschool curriculum:

1. The work team should … inspire and challenge children to broaden their abilities and interests in a way that goes beyond gender-stereotypical choices. (Skolverket, 2018, p. 16)

2. The head … has … special responsibility for … including work on gender equality in systematic work on quality. (Skolverket, 2018, p. 21)

These quotes were chosen to stimulate a general conversation about gender equality in preschool, and to direct the conversations towards the preschool managers’ roles in relation to their gender-equality mission. I introduced various topics and then allowed the participants to discuss them with a low level of interference from me (Powell & Single, 1996). Furthermore, I asked open-ended questions concerning the following aspects of gender-equality work in preschool: initiation, content and goals, implementation and following up. In each focus group, I raised at least one spontaneous follow-up question about the relationship between gender equality and the notion of norm-critique, because this topic appeared in each focus group. In Municipalities 1 and 2, the head of department and the principals were the most active participants, while in Municipality 3 it was the chair of the political committee, the head of department, and the operations managers who were most active.

After the recordings had been transcribed, I analysed the transcripts using a qualitative thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). I reduced the material by highlighting all instances where the word ‘norm’ occurred. This resulted in a data set comprising 26 text passages, consisting of both longer conversations between several participants and single utterances by an individual participant.⁵ I reread and coded this data set primarily using an inductive coding strategy (Powell & Single, 1996), resulting in 29 unique codes. Typical examples of recurring codes were ‘reflection’, ‘wholeness/relation’, ‘gender identity/categories’, ‘change’, ‘norm freedom/neutrality’, ‘gender tiredness’, ‘tension/resistance’, and ‘evaluation and follow-up’. The codes were numbered, reviewed, grouped, and regrouped. During this reviewing and (re)grouping process, I looked for the main themes that stood out when considering the research question: ‘What understandings are ascribed to the notion of norm-critique in relation to Swedish preschool’s gender-equality mission?’ The question’s focus on understandings thus functioned as the ‘main category’ in the coding process; that is, ‘those aspects of the material about which the researcher would like more information’ (Schreier, 2014, p. 6). Using this coding strategy, I found that three themes emerged, based on the different understandings ascribed to the notion of norm-critique in relation to Swedish preschool’s gender-equality mission: reflecting, managing, and changing.

In accordance with this paper’s ambition to better understand and problematize the relationship between gender equality and norm-critique, I selected and analysed those empirical examples that provided insights into the various efforts, complexities, and tensions that arise when local policy actors use the notion of norm-critique as a source of inspiration for understanding Swedish preschool’s gender-equality mission. The chosen quotes were translated from Swedish into English. In the analysis, I did not pay much attention to which local policy actors said what. It would have been possible to relate individual statements to the mandate of each local policy actor but, due to the ‘social nature’ of focus group discussions as ‘interactive data’ (Wilkinson, 1998, p. 117, 119), I have chosen to downplay the role of individual participants.

Results: reflecting, managing, and changing

This section presents three understandings of norm-critique; that is, the understandings ascribed to norm-critique in relation to Swedish preschool’s gender-equality mission. In the focus groups, norm-critique was understood as a means of: reflecting on gender norms; managing the gender-equality mission; and changing gender norms. Each understanding includes one or more sub-understandings (see Table 2).

Table 2. Results of the study: understandings and sub-understandings.

Understanding	Norm-critique as a means of reflecting on gender norms	Norm-critique as a means of managing the gender-equality mission	Norm-critique as a means of changing gender norms
Sub-understanding	Self-reflection Collegial reflection	Resistance Evaluation and follow-up	The individual child Norm-neutrality

Norm-critique as a means of reflecting on gender norms

The necessity of being able to reflect on gender norms when working for gender equality in preschool was discussed in all three focus groups by presenting norm-critique as a means of reflection, through which new understandings and knowledge about gender, gender norms, and gender-equality work may develop. The need for norm-critical reflection was discussed at the level of the self and at the collegial level.

The following excerpt is a typical example of how self-reflection was discussed. The preschool managers from Municipality 2 are discussing how to understand the phrase ‘gender stereotypical choices’, as employed in the preschool curriculum:

Head of department (Municipality 2): So, which lenses do you use when you’re looking at, because who lays the foundations for what’s gender stereotypical? […] Who can say what’s right?

Principal (Municipality 2): There’s no right and wrong.

Head of department (Municipality 2): Gender stereotypical […] it depends on which norms you relate to that word. […] It’s so different; for me, gender stereotypical means that this is from my norm and my point of view and my background, but you see something different, and you see something else. But in preschool we mediate this to so many others.

Principal (Municipality 2): Yes, and just because I think this or that, I can’t just follow my own path in the children’s group while I’m working, but I must broaden myself and see that it can contain different [elements].

Head of department (Municipality 2): […] You do things in your daily life, not because you’re mean or you want to hurt, but it’s the norm you’re born into, and then you don’t see the norm because it’s so commonplace.

Chair of political committee (Municipality 2): […] All of us humans carry a certain load […] Then it’s very important that you sit down to be able to discuss this, broaden the idea so that it becomes, so to speak, normal thinking. That’s important, I think.

Head of department (Municipality 2): Yes, because our norm […] can be so narrow, but then it means we exclude everyone else who isn’t part of that norm.

In this conversation, the preschool managers reported that understanding and discovering gender stereotypes requires self-reflection. This is particularly visible in statements such as: 'for me, gender stereotypical means that this is from my norm and my point of view and my background, but you⁶ see something different'. By investigating individual prejudices related to (gender) norms, more knowledgeable subjects are created. It is not self-evident which subjects they were referring to, but it is likely that the preschool managers meant teachers⁷ as well as themselves. By pointing out the fallibility of human upbringing (‘it’s the norm you’re born into’) and self-centred ways of thinking (‘I can’t just follow my own path’), a desire for a more inclusive preschool, free from limiting gender norms, was expressed. Thus, norm-critique was understood as a means of self-reflection, through which new and broadened ways of working for gender equality are supposed to be stimulated.

Another example of self-reflection comes from focus group 1, where I raised an explicit question about what the relation between norm-critique and gender equality might look like. Principal 2 explained that she asks the teachers at her preschools to reflect on their gender-equality work based on a questionnaire:

Principal 2 (Municipality 1): I run a service based on a gender-equal preschool, and then when you start to bring in observations and look at this and then ask the teachers questions: How do I work in this way? Then you get to see yourself as a teacher […] You must think of yourself as a teacher first: How do I think as a teacher about gender equality in preschool? […] How should I be able to link these issues to the foundational work on values? […] And here you get to look at how [can you] continue to work at each preschool based on gender equality and a norm-critical approach, then?

This principal described teachers as a group who are in need of self-examination. By considering their personal gendered biases using a ‘norm-critical approach’, they are expected to improve their gender-equality work. It follows that norm-critique is understood as a form of reflection, from which further gender-sensitive initiatives may evolve. Here, the role of preschool managers, as local policy actors, seems to be to initiate and support such self-reflective processes: ‘You must think of yourself as a teacher first’, as underlined by principal 2 in focus group 1.

The preschool managers also described the need for norm-critical reflection at the collegial level:

Principal 1 (Municipality 1): We’ve started norm-critical work in preschool, where gender equality is a part, and work in a very focused way with it, with methods such as collegial learning and observations of each other, follow-ups, and coaching […] You must scan yourself, because you carry so much with you from your upbringing: conceptions, which one doesn’t reflect on. That’s why collegial learning is so important: that one can help each other to see […] bloopers.

[—]

Head of department (Municipality 2): As a staff group, you also need to discuss together: What’s our norm? But, at the same time […], there’s an awareness among the staff when we have children who don’t identify with the sex they were born into, that you’re allowed to be who you are.

[—]

Principal (Municipality 3): We’ve worked with something called [Name of structured programme], which is a tool for an equal preschool […] We’ve decided that everyone should work with the first theme called Equal–Different […] A lot of it is about talking about different families: what families look like […] What kind of attitude do we ourselves have? What norms and values do we have? We’ve seen a lot […] We don’t say ‘come on, all the girls’, [because] not everyone may feel like girls.

In the utterances above, a need was expressed for collegial reflection among teachers. Principal 1 in Municipality 1 portrayed ‘collegial learning’ as a cure for individual shortcomings when pointing out that ‘you carry so much with you from your upbringing’. Moreover, it was argued that collegial reflection ought to be norm-critical (not just reflexive in general), which is mirrored in utterances like ‘What’s our norm?’ and ‘What norms and values do we have?’. By investigating which norms are prevalent among teachers, the gender-equality mission is expected to be put into practice. Furthermore, the preschool managers pointed out specific gendered issues that teachers may manage better thanks to their collegial and norm-critical reflections: trans knowledge (‘there’s an awareness among the staff when we have children who don’t identify with the sex they were born into’); mediation of diverse pictures of ‘what families look like’; and avoidance of routine dualistic sex categorization (‘we don’t say “come on, all girls”’). Overall, the notion of norm-critique is understood as a tool for helping colleagues to make visible and collectively overcome their potential gendered prejudices.

To summarize, from the perspective of the preschool managers as local policy actors, norm-critique is understood as a competence-enhancing tool at the individual and collegial levels, which is used (by policy actors and teachers) as a method of reflection and for supporting actions related to the gender-equality mission of preschool. Thus, the understandings that are ascribed to the notion of norm-critique – as a means of reflecting on gender norms – are portrayed as harmonious and enriching in relation to the gender-equality mission of preschool.

Norm-critique as a means of managing the gender-equality mission

All three focus groups discussed the governing of the gender-equality mission. In these discussions, norm-critique is portrayed as a means of managing the gender-equality mission. This means that norm-critique is understood as a tool, firstly, for preventing and manoeuvring resistance against gender equality and, secondly, for improving how the gender-equality mission in preschool is evaluated and followed up within the organization.

Although the preschool managers generally talked about their gender-equality mission in a positive manner, resistance from teachers, parents, and politicians was explicitly discussed. Principal 2 in Municipality 1 described having experienced ‘a lot of resistance’ from her employees, as gender-equality work may threaten teachers’ ‘inner security’. The principal in Municipality 2 mimicked a typical form of resistance statement against gender-equality work from sceptical parents: ‘What are you doing?’ Similarly, the head of department in Municipality 1 gave a concrete example of what resistance from politicians on the municipal childcare and education political committee may look like:

Of course, we get questions, which actually are about the criticism around this: ‘Is it right to challenge the children, or is it the right way to do so?’ They may not use these words directly, but: ‘Is it so wrong that boys are boys and girls are girls?’

How, then, do preschool managers deal with resistance from teachers, parents, and politicians? Here, the analysis shows that the notion of norm-critique serves as a way of managing such forms of resistance. Framing gender equality as part of a broader norm-critical agenda is a strategy used by preschool managers when manoeuvring to prevent or deflect resistance to the gender-equality mission. Resistance from teachers may be managed by counteracting the ‘fatigue’ that is associated with the gender-equality mission:

Principal 1 (Municipality 1): Gender work, there was a little fatigue in that. That’s how it is with processes: to keep them alive. And when the norm-critical concept came, then it got a little boost again.

Regarding resistance from parents, the preschool managers stressed the importance of knowledge. They said that it is ‘important to strengthen the staff’ so that they can communicate to parents that their children have the right to develop a broad gendered repertoire: ‘you must be who you are’ (head of department, Municipality 2). Furthermore, resistance from politicians may be managed by communicating that gender and norms are fields of knowledge, which can be both objectively described and subjectively reflected upon. This was emphasized by the head of department in Municipality 1, who described her efforts at communicating ‘why we’ve come to the conclusion that […] gender-equality work is important, that a norm-critical approach is important’, and her struggles around inviting politicians on the childcare and education political committee ‘to have discussions’ about this. Overall, the preschool managers, as local policy actors, did support the way in which the gender-equality mission is expressed in the preschool curriculum, but they did so by framing gender equality as a matter of educational policy within a broader norm-critical agenda. Thus, from the local policy actors’ perspective, the notion of norm-critique can be understood as a strategy for keeping gender-equality issues on the educational policymaking agenda.

The preschool managers reported that the notion of norm-critique is used for managing how the gender-equality mission is evaluated and followed up. All three focus groups discussed how to include a gender-equality perspective on the so-called systematic quality work in the Swedish preschool. The preschool managers reported that a gender-equality-only perspective is not enough. Rather, they expressed a desire to include several inequality grounds via a norm-critical perspective:

Head of department (Municipality 2): You could put on the gender glasses and read through our interim report […] We can look at how we distribute the statistics, if you’re now going to have boys, girls […] We need a transition period to increase awareness that we need to look at differences based on gender. Then, ultimately, we don’t want to think so. The norm should be that it should be all people, regardless of sex, regardless of gender identity or belonging.

Although this idea put forward by the head of department is hypothetical, it represents a rather radical approach to gender and how to evaluate and follow up the gender-equality mission as inspired by and understood through a norm-critical perspective. This could be interpreted as a desire to develop an anti-categorical evaluation approach to gender equality, in which gender, as a dualistic category, is abandoned as gender differences and inequalities gradually dissolve.

The analysis also shows that the preschool managers were inspired by the notion of norm-critique in their concrete and ongoing evaluation and follow-up work. In focus group 3, the head of department and operations manager 2 concretized how the notion of norm-critique permeates the gender-equality mission:

Head of department (Municipality 3): If you’re at the level of organiser,⁸ as I definitely am, then it’s more about following up, and what are we going to follow up? And then you have to decide what this means, so you know what to follow up […]

Operations manager 2 (Municipality 3): But how do we then follow up […]? That’s what we look for later when we come to the quality report, which becomes more at the level of the organiser, in which we ask questions about this work: ‘Describe where you are in the process of a norm-critical approach, and how do you plan your continued work?’ […] Then we also have an action plan in the municipality that deals with LGBTQ […] But, this year, when we requested the quality report, then it was more like: ‘Where are you in your norm-critical approach, [work to create a safe environment,⁹] and gender-equality work?’

What was being shared between the preschool managers in the excerpt above was a general belief in the importance of supporting and concretizing the gender-equality mission, which is achieved by formulating evaluation questions directed towards principals and teachers. Of special interest for this analysis is the utterance provided by operations manager 2 in Municipality 3 above, in which it appears that gender equality and norm-critique are understood as closely linked to each other (‘where are you in your norm-critical approach, [work to create a safe environment,] and gender equality work?’). There seems to be a desire here to integrate gender equality as part of a broader norm-critical agenda. This was also explicitly stated by operations manager 1 later in the same focus group discussion. She said that she had begun to reflect upon how to label gender equality and gender-equality work in light of the notion of norm-critique:

Gender equality? Do we work with gender equality? For me, we do. But if we work with a norm-critical approach, then we achieve gender equality at a much higher level.

To summarize, the local policy actors described the notion of norm-critique in an exclusively positive way, through which it was given the role of a starting point and a theoretical source of inspiration for the management of the gender-equality mission in preschool. Thus, the understandings that were ascribed to the notion of norm-critique – as a means of managing the gender-equality mission – were depicted as detailed and expanding in relation to the gender-equality mission of preschool.

Norm-critique as a means of changing gender norms

Through the application of a norm-critical approach to the gender-equality mission, gender norms are expected to change. At least, this was highlighted as a long-term goal by the preschool managers. They did, to some extent, discuss changed gender norms at several levels of social organization, but what stands out is the level of the self: the individual child and their development. This section illustrates how norm-critical understandings of the gender-equality mission in preschool feeds into the idea of children’s individual and ‘norm-neutral’ personal development.

In all three focus groups, I asked what the overall gender-equality mission of preschools and the more specific gender-equality work should lead to. In the two excerpts below, the preschool managers are talking about the possible consequences for individual children of working for gender equality using a norm-critical approach:

Moderator: What should come out of the gender-equality work? Or, as you put it, ‘gender, gender equality and norm-critique’? […]

Head of department (Municipality 1): A lovely little person who is somewhat confident, who is confident, yes, and who has these opportunities […], who […] has a broad range of capacities and has been able to test [them].

Principal 2 (Municipality 1): Have been given the opportunity, given the opportunity in different environments.

Head of department (Municipality 1): And somehow without anyone being there and pointing out and correcting them that this way is probably for you or that way is probably for you.

Principal 2 (Municipality 1): Dolls’ corner is here [said as though imitating someone].

Head of department (Municipality 1): So that [mumbles].

Principal 2 (Municipality 1): But there should be a choice […]. Yes, a confident person.

[—]

Moderator: If you consider gender-equality work, what should emerge at the other end? I hear you using words like equality and having a norm-critical approach […]

Chair of political committee (Municipality 3): A little more humanity and less gender.

Principal (Municipality 3): Yes, but I think so too. It shouldn’t matter if you’re a girl or a boy, you should have the right to the same kind of conditions and opportunities.

Here, the gender-equality mission of preschool seems at one level to be understood in line with rather conventional liberal feminist thought in which issues like children’s individual opportunities, rights, and gender sameness are emphasized. At the same time, however, when the preschool managers were explicitly asked what norm-critical approaches add to the gender-equality mission, it seems as though the liberal notion was broadened or complemented by a more deconstructionist-inspired rhetoric. Expressions like ‘a lovely little person’ and ‘a little more humanity and less gender’ serve as examples of such deconstructionist ambitions, in which gender as a dualistic category is transformed into a more degendered and fluid state. The goal of framing Swedish preschool’s gender-equality mission in norm-critical terms seems to be to nurture individuals who are not negatively affected by harmful and limiting norms in their surroundings, but rather affirmed by the idea of what I would like to call ‘norm-neutrality’.

Norm-neutrality refers to the idea that individual children may develop more freely if they are socialized in surroundings where limiting norms are not present. In the following excerpt, the preschool managers stress that their gender-equality mission is a task that requires continuous processes rather than time-limited projects, which is enhanced thanks to the notion of norm-critique:

Chair of political committee (Municipality 1): It’s really not a project, but it should be there all the time […]

Principal 1 (Municipality 1): Yes, as natural as this with discrimination, violation, and everything. That’s how it should be. Our children must simply have equal conditions, based on norm-free thinking. That’s how it is. And that’s something to work for all the time, I think.

Of particular relevance in this excerpt is the phrase ‘based on norm-free thinking’, which the principal connects to children’s ‘equal conditions’. The preschool managers seem to be striving to create a preschool that stimulates and nurtures the uniqueness of children as individuals, where they can develop without the constraints of limiting (gendered) norms. This idea was widely presented by the preschool managers. Several of the examples given in this results section on reflecting on gender norms and managing the gender-equality mission can be analysed as signifiers of this tendency; for example, utterances like ‘there’s no right and wrong’ (principal, Municipality 2), and ‘the norm should be that it should be all people, regardless of sex, regardless of gender identity or belonging’ (head of department, Municipality 2).

Although the idea of norm-neutrality permeates the overall results, there is a special emphasis on changing gender norms at the individual level. Hence, this specific understanding of norm-critique is intended to liberate preschool children from limiting gendered norms. Thus, the local policy actors see norm-critique as a method of enacting change when understanding Swedish preschool’s gender-equality mission and translating it into local education policy. Primarily, they seem to believe that what should be changed are the gendered norms limiting children’s individual development. This indicates that the understandings ascribed to the notion of norm-critique – as a method for changing gender norms – are portrayed as innovative, transformative, and subversive in relation to preschool’s gender-equality mission.

Concluding discussion

The main finding to emerge from this analysis of local policy actors’ norm-critical understandings of Swedish preschool’s gender-equality mission is that the notion of norm-critique is viewed as a revitalizer of that mission. Below, this finding is discussed in relation to previous policy and academic debates relating to the aim of the paper; namely, to better understand and problematize the relationship between gender equality, as formal curricular content, and norm-critique, as informal curricular content, in educational policymaking in the field of Swedish preschool. This is achieved by outlining two contrasting arguments, and by discussing the implications for further educational policymaking, implementation, and research.

The first argument, norm-critique as enhancing gender equality, takes the perspective of the general reasoning of the local policy actors. Through their norm-critical understandings of Swedish preschool’s gender-equality mission, they underline that gender equality is an important aspect of the formal curricular content. As pointed out in previous research, Swedish preschool’s gender-equality mission has never been easy to understand or implement (Edström, 2010; Heikkilä, 2020; Lind-Valdan, 2014). Rephrasing gender equality through a norm-critical framework might be a legitimate way for local policy actors to understand and, possibly, manage and implement their gender-equality mission. In addition, the results indicate that there is a degree of ‘fatigue’ connected to this mission, which could be explained by its long historical legitimacy in Swedish preschool curricula (Vallberg Roth, 2006) and, at the same time, its vagueness (Axelsson & Frödén, 2021). It is therefore not surprising if local policy actors turn to the notion of norm-critique, especially considering its rapid spread during the last decade in Sweden (Björkman et al., 2021); it can function as a tool for reflecting, managing, and changing the gender-equality mission that they are expected to govern. After all, norm-critique is an inclusive pedagogy and a school of thought encompassing great variety in its scope and content (Reimers, 2020), which makes it possible to use it for different emancipatory purposes in educational policymaking. Finally, thanks to the popularity and primarily poststructuralist epistemological roots of the notion, it may offer a positive, creative, and ‘new’ way of striving for gender equality. The turn to the notion of norm-critique might help local policy actors to view gender equality in relation to other, intersecting aspects of inequality in order to achieve ‘[i]nclusion and equity in and through education’ (UNESCO, 2016, p. 7).

The second argument, that norm-critique undermines gender equality, represents a critical and tension-oriented perspective on the relationship between norm-critique and gender equality. Instead of broadening and enhancing the gender-equality mission, there is a risk that the notion of norm-critique replaces gender equality – even though norm-critique is given no formal status in the preschool curriculum. In addition, there is always a risk of losing sight of how power and exclusionary norms operate in educational policymaking by focusing solely on producing ‘new’ norms (Langmann & Månsson, 2016), in this case related to gender equality. As discussed in previous critical research on Swedish preschool’s gender-equality mission (Edström, 2010; Heikkilä, 2020; Lind-Valdan, 2014), there are no simple solutions to the problem of understanding and implementing this mission. Turning to the notion of norm-critique to ‘solve’ this problem might instead downgrade the gender-equality mission or even keep it off the educational policymaking agenda. Therefore, using the notion of norm-critique as a means of reflecting, managing, and changing gender equality can be seen as a form of resistance to the gender-equality mission. From this perspective, the tendency towards using the notion of norm-critique – due to its intrinsic vagueness and contradictory versions, its travelling and popularization – as a ‘universal solution’ to everything (Björkman et al., 2021, p. 190, my translation), including the gender-equality mission, is likely to prove overoptimistic and naïve.

To conclude, although this study is limited in scope and generalizability, it is the first of its kind. The results have implications for further educational policymaking, implementation, and research. Firstly, educational policymaking in preschool, at both national and local level, needs to find a balance between the influence of the notion of norm-critique (as informal curricular content linked to both activism and academic knowledge production) and gender equality (as formal curricular content linked to institutionalized gender and educational politics). Secondly, if the notion of norm-critique is used to understand Swedish preschool’s gender-equality mission, this will have implications for how the latter mission is implemented by local policy actors. Since this paper is not an implementation study, I can only speculate on these implications. However, what is known from previous research is that the successful implementation of gender-equality policies in preschool is dependent on gender-knowledge-based understandings of this mission (Heikkilä, 2020). Some of the understandings of norm-critique found in this study are potentially incompatible with preschool’s gender-equality mission: the overemphasis on self-reflection and the individual child, and the idea of norm-neutrality. Gender is indeed a matter of social relations and structural inequalities, and it is scarcely a ‘neutral’ category. Therefore, if local policy actors wish to use the notion of norm-critique for understanding the gender-equality mission in preschool, they must bear in mind its radical and critical agenda, and that the epistemological complexity of this notion is likely to make it difficult to put into practice. Thirdly, and finally, more research is needed to explore how the notion of norm-critique has affected the Swedish educational policy landscape and how this notion, just like gender equality, is highly normative (Reimers, 2020), and, in addition, tends to produce nationalism and Swedishness (Lykke, 2016; Martinsson et al., 2016). It is especially important to understand the outcomes of the travelling and popularization of the notion of norm-critique, for example by mapping its use in a Nordic educational policy context and through implementation studies in preschool, as well as in other educational settings.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and feedback on a previous version of this paper. I would also like to thank my colleagues at Örebro university, in CFS (Centre for Feminist Social Studies) and ReCEL (Research on Children’s Education and Learning), and Linnea Urberg and Linda Axelsson for their helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Örebro university under Grant number ORU 2017/05835.

Notes

1. ‘Preschool’ refers to an early childhood education and care setting for children aged 1–5 years.

2. In previous Swedish preschool curricula (Skolverket, 1998; Socialstyrelsen, 1987), the emphasis regarding gender equality was directed towards the teachers, the caring/educational environment, and the care/teaching as such. The role of principals and the managerial level was not explicitly mentioned in relation to the gender-equality mission. Furthermore, I find the same tendency in the preschool curricula of the other Nordic countries; that is, to prioritize the role of teachers and care/teaching in relation to gender equality. This conclusion is based on a reading of the contemporary preschool curricula of Denmark (Børne- og undervisningsministeriet, 2018), Iceland (Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, 2011), Finland (Utbildningsstyrelsen, 2022), and Norway (Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2017).

3. The term ‘preschool principal’ (rektor) refers to a person in a leading position over one or several preschools. The principal is a ‘pedagogical leader and head of the preschool teachers, child minders and other staff in the preschool’ (Skolverket, 2018, p. 21).

4. The Swedish term normkritik is sometimes translated as ‘norm-criticism’ (see e.g. Qvarsebo, 2021) and sometimes as ‘norm-critique’ (see e.g. Reimers, 2020). I have chosen to use the term ‘norm-critique’ both because it is a literal translation of the Swedish word, and also because of the more constructive connotations related to the word ‘critique’. For a more detailed discussion of the relation between critique and criticism, see Hoffart (2021, pp. 70–71).

5. These 26 text passages encompass approximately 5800 words and were distributed as follows between the focus groups: 13 (focus group 1), 7 (focus group 2), and 6 (focus group 3).

6. Here, the Swedish word du is used, which refers to ‘you’ in the singular.

7. The term ‘teacher’ refers to all staff categories in preschool, regardless of their formal training and/or employment.

8. The term ‘organizer’ refers to the Swedish term huvudman.

9. The participant uses the word trygghetsarbete (literally ‘safety work’), which refers to creating a sound psycho-social preschool environment for children.