There is an urgent need of a theoretical basis for the concept didactics in SAEC in many countries. The concept exists in reality but is not conceptualized in a scientific theory. This lack of a theoretical platform has caused frustration among staff in SAEC (Cartmel et al., 2020), researchers, policy makers and government evaluators (Hurst, 2019). The symposium is mirroring an international study that explores and compares the existing explicit and implicit framework in SAEC (SchoolAgeEduCare) in three countries using the case study methodolgy and describing the implementation of the conceptual didactics in Sweden, Switzerland and Australia.
According to Maag Merki (2021) school improvement requires the perspective on the multi-level system and the confrontation with the "double reality" (Fend 2006) of educational systems, which are educational policies and the concrete actions of actors. Giddens' structuration theory (1984) serves to understand this dual reality. It is assumed that the actions of the actors cannot be adequately understood without reference to the specifications and structures. For the realization of sustainable school development, the view must be directed to the structures that enable or also limit school development. The success or failure of school development must thus be interpreted as the result of the interdependence of structure and action (Maag Meri, 2021).
Based on this theoretical framework on school improvement the shared research questions are:
· What are national regulations on SAEC and how are these policies transformed into practice?
· How do the children use and value their time in SAEC?
· What are educators’ professional believes and actions in SAEC?
With a mixed method approach (Creswell, 2014) empirical data related to the phenomena of didactics in SAEC will be described, analyzed and compared using both qualitative and quantitative methods.
An overview on the project design as well as the theoretical framework is given in the first presentation including the analysis of educational policies on SAEC in Sweden. The second presentation draws preliminary results on children’s data gathered in Australia, the third one presents results taken from the interviews with professionals, gathered in Switzerland
2023.