Uppeldi og menntun - 01.01.2009, Page 59

Uppeldi og menntUn/icelandic JoUrnal of edUcation 18(1)/2009 59
kolbrÚn Þ. pálsdóttir
um höfund
Kolbrún Þ. Pálsdóttir (kolbrunp@hi.is) er doktorsnemi og stundakennari við Menntavís-
indasvið Háskóla Íslands. Hún lauk B.A.-prófi í heimspeki frá Háskóla Íslands árið
1996 og M.A.-prófi í uppeldis- og menntunarfræðum frá sama skóla árið 2001. Kol-
brún starfaði hjá Reykjavíkurborg 2002–2007 við rekstur frístundaheimila. Rannsóknir
hennar beinast einkum að því að skoða vinnudag yngstu barna í skólum og frístunda-
heimilum frá stofnanalegu sjónarhorni og sjónarhorni barna.
aftEr-school cEntrEs for six to ninE yEar old
childrEn in rEykjaVik
abstract
After school centres are part of the available service for parents at every elementary
school in Reykjavík offering day-care for first to fourth graders from 2 pm to 5 pm. The
after-school centres in Iceland have received remarkably little attention from academ-
ic researchers and even less from the Icelandic legislator, as no particular laws govern
these centres. In this essay I argue that these institutions have an unclear status in the
school system, for at least three main reasons. Firstly, an overview of the history of
the after school centres in Reykjavik reveals that they have been placed under various
authorities over the past decades, drifting, as it were, from one to the next. Second, by
looking into the cooperation between after school centres and the schools, one finds
out that the facilities these centres have access to after school-hours are poor, and
there also seems to be a total lack of any ideological dialogue between the staff of
the school and the staff of the after school centres. At last, I compare the Icelandic
after school centres to their Nordic counterparts and give an overview of some of the
nordic research that has been done on the cooperation between after school centres
and the school. The work of these centres needs to be made more visible at all levels of
the educational system. The legislation needs to be clarified and made more detailed,
the cooperation between schools and the centres needs to be better defined, and the
educational requirements for the employees at these centres needs to be defined more
clearly.
about thE author
Kolbrún Þ. Pálsdóttir (kolbrunp@hi.is) is a Ph.D. student and part-time teacher at the
School of Education at the University of Iceland. She holds a B.A.-degree in philosophy
from the University of Iceland and a M.A.- degree in education from the same school.
Her main research area is children´s workday in schools and after-school centres from
an institutional perspective and the children´s perspective.