All-Day Schools and Social Work: A Swiss Case Study

Abstract

All-day schools are becoming more widespread in Switzerland. They enable pupils to participate in lunchtime and extracurricular activities organized and supervised mostly by social workers. Qualitative data were collected for a project on newly implemented area-wide all-day schools in Zurich, Switzerland’s largest city. The research was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). Findings indicate that the resulting structural, pedagogical, spatial, and staff changes significantly impact the social work setting. The importance and potential of social work needs to be better communicated to the all-day school community.