Description:
INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT PLANS AS A PHENOMENON OF THE TIMES, OF SOCIETY AND OFSCHOOL. The aim of this article is to contribute to an improved understandingof the growing phenomenon of individual development plans for school andpre-school children, by means of discussion, concept development and criticalexamination. Individual development plans can be seen as reflecting the turn-ing point between modernity and late modernity – a manifestation of freedomof choice, a greater say for the child, but also a more regulated childhood.From a comparison of different municipalities, three patterns emerge: (1)homogeneous and monocultural, (2) diversified and heterogeneous, and (3)the development of different patterns in pre-schools and schools. The conceptof individual development plans is broken down into the three sub-conceptsof individual, development and plan. An inherent vagueness and dissonancecan be observed between the meanings conveyed by the definitions of theseconcepts, on the one hand, and what the phenomenon actually seems torepresent and include, judging from normative texts and the empirical data,on the other. Individual-oriented normal plan would be a more accuratedescription of this phenomenon as it emerges from the material studied.