This paper describes a policy ethnographic study with an interest to develop understandings for the ways potentially opposing discourses about educational development (the creativity discourse and the performativity discourse) take form in the social practices of doing and talking about teaching and learning in terms of classroom work between teachers, pupils, artefacts and traditions, all of which are considered as potential social actors in the construction of these practices in a pre-school class (6 years) and the early grades (1-3) of the elementary school, (Beach, 1995, 1997: Gustafsson, 2003, Gustafsson & Rystedt, 2007). In the paper I analyse and describe the principles of formation and the products of inter-discursivity in relation to the new school discourses of creativity and performativity with an empirical focus on how teachers do and talk about their work in the spaces of action constituted between the two discourses. A theoretical synthesis comprising critical discourse analysis (Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999; Fairclough, 1992, 1995; Fairclough & Wodak, 1997; Wodak, 1996) and a combination of sociological theories of institutional identities and processes from Bernstein (1990, 1996) and Giddens (1979, 1984) has been used in the project. This synthesis has been necessary in order to analyse both the discursive and the non-discursive moments within the social practices of the investigated institutions.The research is an ethnographic investigation and looks particularly at various aspects of the duality of discourse. Ball and Bowe (1989) have termed this kind of analysis as policy ethnography and have described its distinct purpose as being to focus on the relationship between the formal, written curriculum and specific, local, classroom practices. The goal here is to develop a link between detailed ethnographic descriptions of the social and discursive practices taking place within institutional practice and analyses of the broader social unit or system of which they are part, in order to provide a clearer picture of the structural and other relations of power that create spaces and possibilities for some human actions but that constrain and limit the possibilities of others. I have participated in the interactions and day to day practices at different levels of the education system, particularly at the local level, and have conducted my work with the help of discourse analysis, interviews, field conversations, participant observation and the use of video.A preliminary analysis shows that the teachers within the pre-school class (6 years) and the early grades (1-3) of the elementary school have developed a type of resistance to the performativity discourse. This opposition, or resistance, is most obvious in terms of the articulation of a more neo-progressivist discourse in these parts of the school and in efforts to establish open environments and person centred education as the norm. These educators are critical toward current practices and thinking regarding evaluation and assessment further up the school and toward the pressure they feel teachers in grades 4-5 impose on them to conform more to an objectivist approach to assessments of pupil performance in subject domains and the communication of findings regarding these assessments. Through the appropriation of a neo-progressivist discourse classroom practices materialise where individualisation, independent work and pupil responsibility take place through the use of individual working production, thematic organisation and portfolios. Individualisation is however, whilst taken and represented as progressive by the teachers, also at the same time functioning as a means of preparation for the performativity discourses of the later grades. What is thus emerging is a form of working hybrid between neo-progressivism and neo-conservatism in the curriculum.Ball, S.J., & Bowe, R. (1989). When the garment gapes: Policy and ethnography as practices. Paper presented at the Ethnography and education conferance, St. Hildas College, Oxford, sept 9-11.Beach, D. (1995). Making sense of the problem of change: an ethnographic study of a teacher education reform. (Göteborg Studies in Educational Sciences 100). Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis. Beach, D. (1997). Symbolic control and power relay: Learning in higher professional education. (Göteborg Studies in Educational Sciences 119). Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis. Bernstein, B. (1990). Class, codes and control, Vol. 4: The structuring of pedagogic discourse. London: Routledge. Bernstein, B. (1996). Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: Theory, research and critique. London: Taylor and Francis. Chouliarki, L., & Fairclough, N. (1999). Discourse in the late modernity: Rethinking critical discourse analysis. Edinburgh: University Press. Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Cambridge Polity Press. Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Longman. Fairclough, N., & Wodak, R. (1997). Critical discourse analysis. I T. van Dijk, (Ed.), Discourse as social interaction. London: Sage. Giddens, A. (1979). Central Problems in Social Theory. London: MacMillan PressLtd. Giddens, A. (1984). The Constitution of Society. Cambridge: Poliry Press. Gustafsson, J. (2003). Integration som text, diskursiv och social praktik. En policyetnografisk fallstudie av mötet mellan skolan och förskoleklassen. (Göteborg Studies in Educational Sciences 199). Göteborg, Sweden: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis. Gustafsson, J. & Rystedt, H. (2007). Bridging theory and practice through work-integrated learning. Report in Work-integretad learning. University College. Trollhättan, Sweden Wodak, R. (1996). Disorder of discourse. London: LongmanIt will be part of a book