Physical activity among children has been a topical subject in social debate in recent years. This often concerns children’s increasing sedentary behavior. Arguments vary within the discussion of what physical activity should consist of, how it is conducted and why it is carried out. In this debate school-age educare and school has been given a prominent position as actors where children’s physical activity can and should take place to decrease children’s sedentary behavior. Physical activity is explicit mentioned in the Swedish curriculum as a part of the central content of the education in school-age educare, though, the curriculum is not clear concerning performance and aim of children´s physical activity (Skolverket, 2019). This leaves room for local constructions, and possibility for different actors to influence the social practice. Previous studies picture school-age educare as complex and constantly changing, influenced by social tendencies, norms and discourses (e.g. Haglund, 2009; Holmberg, 2018). Though, there is a lack of studies explicitly addressing physical activity in school-age educare and comprehensive social discourses influencing the social practice. That, together with the rather unclear mission for school-age educare, makes it interesting to study and in analyze discuss possible implications. 

This paper draws from an ongoing PhD-project focusing on discourses in relation to children’s physical activity in Swedish school-age educare and school. The aim of this paper is to shed light on how the talk about children’s activity in school-age educare can be seen as part of comprehensive social discourses concerning education and physical activity. Focus-group interviews with a discourse-analytic approach have been carried out with staff from two municipal school-age educare in Sweden. The transcriptions was analyzed with inspiration from critical discourse analyze and childhood sociology (which are the theoretical standpoints). 

The result shows that staff in school-age educare see the importance to compensate for children’s sedentary behavior in home and school. This is done by arranging activities where the children can be physical active, mostly using children´s expected own joy of movement, with the aim to improve children´s school results as well as benefitting psychosocial- and physical health. The conclusion is that staff in school-age educare in general see children’s psychosocial health as their primary competence area, which therefore is suggested to be the starting point for how the social practice is designed. Also, children’s expected own joy of movement can be problematized and should not always be taken for granted. Therefore, there is a need for taking children’s own needs, interests and initiatives into consideration when physical activity in school-age educare take place.