Håll i, håll om, håll ut : en intervjustudie om förskolechefers syn på handledning i förskolan

Sammanfattning: The reason why we chose to investigate how preschool managers view supervision, is because during our specialist preschool teachers training and our own experiences had been that supervision is often not used proactively, but more as a disciplinary tool. According to Swedish School law it is the duty of the preschool manager to ensure the progress and the development of the education in the preschool. We want to investigate if specialist educational supervision could lead to improvement of professional competency and an overall improvement within the organisation.   The purpose of our investigation is to gain an insight into specialist preschool managers attitude towards professional supervision and how supervision is being used in preschool organisations. We have interviewed five preschool managers from four different municipalities about their view on professional supervision and how they use it in their preschool organisations. Four out of five preschool organisations employ a specialist teacher and one preschool has access to an external specialist teacher.   The outcome is that specialist educational supervision is used to develop the organisation, to increase the competency amongst teachers, to provide an opportunity to reflect and get new ideas. The outcome also demonstrates the importance of the competence and skill set of the supervisor and what challenges organisations might face when providing supervision. The gains of providing specialist teachers within organisations were also evident, and that there are challenges with accessing this support externally instead.   An further outcome of our study is that specialist educational supervision in preschool contributes to organisational development and an increase of the teachers’ competency. When analysing the results in our study we have used a system theoretical perspective on professional supervision.