The tinkering of standards: rethinking educational policy through teacher adaptation

This study sheds light on the mundane enactment of a policy in educational settings by focusing on a new Swedish national standard, the Early Learning Support Guarantee (ELSG), in Reading, Writing, and Number sense. An ethnographic-inspired study unpacks the significance of the interplay between formal guidelines and professional judgement with a particular focus on teachers’ professional enactment of a policy in the context of mundane school practice. The policy is rendered compatible through the continuous adjustments made by teachers. This has implications for how educational policy practices in the school sector can be refined by considering and including values of locality, teachers’ discretion, and the potential role of policy evaluation and the reciprocity of standards.