The idea of evidence-based or evidence-informed professional practices has been debated across many countries and societal sectors in the past decades, not least in education (Eryaman & Schneider, 2017). During these decades, a significant strand of education policy discourse promotes integrating scientific knowledge from researchers with experiential knowledge from practitioners, ultimately to improve students’ learning outcomes. Aligning with such discourse, Sweden, as the first country, in 2010 legislates that education in the public school system is to rest on science and proven experience (Rapp et al., 2017). To aid implementation for staff in schools, government agencies provide development programs and in-service training as well as support with how teaching can be improved by research-based methods and procedures. However, one form of education for adults - the folk high school in Swedish popular education - stands independent (“free and voluntary”) from such legislation and aid, yet conducts the youth recreation leader program based on this policy (deleted for anonymity).

The independence raises questions about the program teachers’ policy enactment. Prior research on this school form has predominantly examined, for example, its historical development and supporting ideas whereas practice-based issues on teachers' current educational practices are under-researched (deleted for anonymity; Lövgren & Nordvall, 2017). Further, some research emphasizes an interpretation problem with the two-concept policy formulation in that different professionals define the concepts differently (e.g., Levinsson, 2013; Sahlin, 2021). More attention is thus needed for context-specific empirical research, given the uncertainty of conceptual interpretation; the folk high school’s characteristic conditions; the limited research on current educational practices; and finally, the half-century-long role as the country's sole educator of youth recreation leaders.

In this paper, we direct our focus toward the previously invisible descriptions of how teachers at this specific vocational program work to enact the policy of science and proven experience. Informed by an interpretive understanding of human behavior and the social world, online semi-structured interviews with fourteen youth recreation leader education teachers were employed to analyze their descriptions. By using thematic analysis to structure the interview transcriptions (Braun & Clarke, 2021), we demonstrate how these teachers understand their work in relation to the research focus.

Findings indicate that science is enacted as pedagogical content permeating the program, i.e., research-based university-level course literature and researcher-led lectures. These lectures are carried out by researchers either in person at the local folk high school or as online seminars aired on TV in the classroom. In addition, another enactment in the final academic school year assigns the students to individually conduct an academic study. The study is to be reported in an essay-like form, where parts of the preparation consist of discussions on what research is and how it can be carried out. Concerning proven experience, it is enacted by collegial pedagogical reflection between the teachers. Such reflection is carried out partly within the local team about daily teaching-related issues, partly beyond this team in more irregular conversations with colleagues at other folk high schools. One preliminary conclusion in relation to enacting science, is that it seems the teachers target pedagogical content while research-based methods and procedures are much less prioritized.

These findings can contribute to knowledge of the Swedish folk high school and teachers' work. Such knowledge is central for developing the school form in general and its educational practices in particular. This research could therefore be “a seed for resilience” not only for current and future professionals in the context, but more importantly, for vulnerable young people being guided by as competent youth recreation leader graduates as possible.