Constructing Appropriate Information in School Transition. Documents as Institutional Agents of Topicalising Children’s (In)Capabilities and Pedagogical Practices

Abstract

In this chapter, I investigate how school transition documentation, in addition to recording issues, also actively constructs ideas about the topical information, roles and responsibilities and, consequently, institutional reality in school transition. In a transition phase, documentation has a great potential serve as a tool for ensuring the continuity in pedagogical practices. However, documentation is often found to focus on illustrating subjectifying and problem-oriented pictures of children and their incapabilities instead of explicating pedagogical practices and professional responsibilities in transition. In this chapter, I utilise the discursive approach to analyse the ready-set transition document forms from two Finnish municipalities and filled school transition documents of 43 pre-primary aged children (N = 43). In Finnish regulations, it is stated that all the appropriate information needs to be transferred to school prior the transition. Consequently, I analyse what kind of understanding about this appropriate information municipal document forms and teachers’ writings reflect. In addition to investigating the contents, I analyse how the roles and responsibilities of children, parents, and teachers as well as pre-primary and primary school institutions are presented in relation to school transition. As a theoretical starting point, I apply documentality theory introduced by Ferraris.