Since 2005 we have been part of the National Centre of Inclusive Education. One of our main tasks has been development of the preschool area. This paper pinpoints some of the dilemmas we experience as researchers in the span between on the one hand facilitating development and education as a bottom-up process for the practicians and on the other hand collaborating with municipal authorities. We will investigate the dilemmas through readings and discussions of the impact of new public management. How does this management strategy influence the daily life of development in local institutional contexts? And how does it unfold in the local municipal management structure? 

Our empirical data are generated through participation in a specific actions research project ordered by a middle size community outside Copenhagen. In this specific case the municipality management wanted to reorganize the ways in which children with special needs were included in the general preschool classes. The purpose was to develop an inclusive preschool that differed from the current situation, where children usually were referred to a special unit within the general preschool. In the new inclusive perspective, children and teachers from both units had to develop a practice, where is became possible for the both children and teachers to blend groups and activities. The process caused concern and resistance to some teachers but by other teachers it was met by great enthusiasm and desire to go ahead with these new ideas.

The dilemmas will be discussed on the basis of our own development practice and through more general and theoretical debates of bottom-up development in the current European welfare state.

A specific action research project on inclusion of special needs groups in an ordinary day care institution will provide us with empirical material on development practice in the preschool area. We will pose the questions:

·         How does action research compete with the other employer ordered projects?

·         What kind of impact do critical voices have on the management?

·         How is responsibility towards project participation to be distributed between the teachers, the consultants and the management?

·         How New Public Management hierarchies handle the demands of development towards preschools in a European perspective?

·         How NPM handles the collaborative process with the external consultants?

In the light of our empirical findings we will further discuss how employer promoted action research may unfold?  Does the bottom-up figure make sense in the liberal welfare state? May action research contribute to empowerment and critical reflections in the welfare state anno 2011, and if yes – in which ways?

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