Leading data use in Swedish early childhood education: regulative pressure and organizational improvement

This study examines how principals lead and organize data use in early childhood education (ECE) within a policy context that requires systematic quality assurance while discouraging assessment of children. Although data-based decision-making is widely promoted in school improvement, research on what data are used and how they are analysed in ECE remains limited, particularly in Nordic contexts. Drawing on interviews with 17 principals across four Swedish municipalities and an analysis of local policy documents, the study explores how principals make sense of quality assurance demands and enact them into organizational practices, guided by a framework of sensemaking and organizational routines. The findings show that principals primarily rely on internally generated qualitative data, while the absence of assessment data and variations in teachers’ data literacy create challenges for systematic analysis. The study conceptualizes data use in ECE as a locally constructed, interpretive, and relational practice rather than a technical-rational process.