This article addresses the uneasy relationship between time, participation, and development of educational practice within welfare institutions. It focuses on the tensions between time and participation which were manifest during certain forms of development in daycare centers and schools that involved employees' knowledge, reflections, and actions on how to renew their educational practice. Questions of access to, and participation in, democratic development and renewal of pedagogy and educational practice pertain to issues of social development and engagement by pointing out the personal and organizational consequences of unequal opportunities for employees to develop welfare institutions through their own social engagement and knowledge.