Every year the city of Stockholm is giving out a survey to all parents who have a child in a pre-school. In the pre-school survey parents are asked to answer 26 questions with the purpose of improving the quality of the pre-schools and of helping other parents in the search and choice for a pre-school for their child. The purpose of this inquiry is to investigate how the pre-school managers think about parents doing the assessment and grading of the quality of the work of the pre-school and what consequences it implies to their job. To conquer the purpose of the study five interviews have been done, four out of which were made with pre-school managers and one with a director who has a position in pre-school matters within the district administration of the municipality. With support of an interview guide the aim was to hear the managers own story. Since the pre-schools are up for grading and assessment by outsiders I also want to look for signs indicating that the pre-schools are potentially moving towards a more market oriented way of organizing their work. This has been studied with the assistance of the theory of performativity and questions to inquire in what way the different establishments try to meet the demand of transparency.

The study shows that the pre-school managers are eager to involve the parents and make them aware of what they are doing and how they work within the establishment. But on the other hand, they question whether the parents have either the knowledge or the interest it takes to evaluate the efforts of the pre-school in such a way that it really helps to improve quality in the establishment. Despite that, the managers stress that the result of the pre-school survey is important, especially when it comes to attracting new children to their pre-school.