Governing education,governing early childhood education and care practitioners’ profession?

Abstract

Neo-liberal values affect early childhood education through the production of specific teacher subjectivities. These subjectivities are connected not only to the logic of competition, but also to competing definitions of worth, trust and values, as demonstrated by data. Neo-liberal values of accountability are also intertwined with the traditional discourse of child-centred learning. This study contributes to research concerning early childhood education and care staff’s professionalism by focusing on the effects of the commercialization of early childhood education and care teachers’ understanding of their work. With survey data (161 responses) collected from the five largest municipalities in Finland, the authors examine the reasoning that early childhood education and care staff provide for choosing commercial as well as non-commercial digital applications, licensed programmes and ready-made learning materials. The research is highly topical since the number of innovations targeted at early childhood education and care is increasing. Digitalization opens new ways for the privatization and marketization of education by introducing appealing commercially produced programmes and materials. In this study, the authors show how the advertising of these innovations as providing ‘easy solutions’ to improve either children's learning or early childhood education and care practitioners’ working time has become a discourse through which teachers and other staff members evaluate their work and their professionalism. In addition, the authors suggest that Finnish early childhood education and care practitioners seem to have internalized the pressure to enhance efficiency and accountability in early childhood education and care.

Introduction

The pressure in governing early childhood education and care (ECEC) is increasing globally, especially in western welfare states. With the paradigm of technocratic rationality, accountability, evaluation and clearly specified goals have become the buzzwords of the administration of education (e.g. Ball, 2015). The management of time, space and pedagogical content is often presented as being an efficient technique for enhancing efficiency and accountability in ECEC. The new ways of governing, such as the increased pressure for documentation, have increasingly become a standard part of ECEC. While the whole education sector is affected by increasing datafication, early childhood education has been overlooked in studies examining the role of data (Jarke and Breiter, 2019). However, researchers such as Plum were already arguing in 2012 that ECEC teachers’ professionalism has come to be constituted by the continual production of knowledge in terms of setting up clearly specified goals, means and methods, as well as the pressure to document how these goals are achieved. According to Plum (2012a, 2012b), such a development has produced a necessity and an opportunity for technologies of documentation and planning. Continuous evaluation, measuring and reflection generate a cycle in which teachers are expected to produce knowledge constantly. These technologies produce new teacher subjects, which is why it is important to study the reconstitution of the ECEC teacher at a time when technologies of education reforms have become part of Finnish ECEC (see Holloway and Brass, 2018: 362).

Currently, there is a growing body of research on the effects of neo-liberal values on early childhood education (e.g. see Roberts-Holmes and Moss, 2021). Bradbury and Roberts-Holmes (2018: 56) discuss the production of specific teacher and student subjectivities, which are bound up not only with the logic of competition, but also with competing definitions of worth, trust and values, as demonstrated by data (see also, Bradbury, 2013, 2019a, 2019b). Bradbury and Roberts-Holmes (2018) emphasize how the traditional discourse of child-centred learning is conditioned by the measures driven by neo-liberal values of accountability. Although early childhood education is influenced by neo-liberal values internationally, its various modes have received little attention in Finnish research on ECEC. To date, the research on marketization of education in the Finnish context has concentrated on privatization (e.g. Ruutiainen, 2022; Ruutiainen et al., 2018, 2021; Valkonen et al., 2021), pedagogical leadership (e.g. Fonsén et al., 2021; Mäntyjärvi and Puroila, 2019), the implementation of special support in private ECEC (e.g. Pihlaja and Neitola, 2017), matters of access (e.g. Fjällström et al., 2020; Paananen et al., 2019, 2020), and accountability and its consequences for ECEC (e.g. Paananen, 2017).

In this study, we examine the reasoning behind choosing and putting into service various types of ready-made learning materials within Finnish ECEC. The study contributes to research concerning ECEC (staff) professionalism and brings into question the effects of commercialization on ECEC teachers’ professionalism. Currently, an increasing number of commercial innovations – both those that are available for free and those that are chargeable – are being targeted at ECEC. These innovations are often advertised as providing ‘easy solutions’ to improve either children's learning or practitioners’ working time, and, ultimately, intensify ECEC services. Several digital platforms are very popular. The education on these platforms is often presumed as autonomous, fair, equal and rational. From the perspective of this study, it is essential to point out that digitalization especially (as well as non-digital learning material) opens up new ways for the privatization and marketization of education by introducing appealing applications (apps) and licensed programmes. The commercialization of education, including ECEC, brings together business interests and a range of private actors, including global corporations, as well as various branches of science. In the discussion section of this article, we reflect further on these interconnections and the implications for ECEC and ECEC teachers’ professionalism.

The image of ECEC practitioners has changed from that of care providers or protectors to investment brokers or economic custodians, whose role it is to ensure that the investment in young children's learning does not go to waste (Gibson et al., 2015). This inevitably affects the ways practitioners consider the core of their work and the qualifications provided by their formal education to implement the curriculum and promote readiness for school and human capital (see Roberts-Holmes and Moss, 2021). Currently, there is a shortage of qualified early childhood education practitioners in Finland. In particular, there are not enough ECEC teachers, who are responsible for the pedagogy that is carried out in ECEC settings. Thus, ECEC service providers have numerous vacancies for teachers, while unqualified staff are carrying out their work. We argue that because of the lack of sufficient comprehension of early years pedagogy, innovations can be experienced as being both appealing and efficient. However, we emphasize that by promising evidence-based, scientific, tailored, individualized learning, precision education can readily be seen as a solution to the various problems of ‘traditional’ education (Ideland, 2020). Furthermore, as precision education implies that the only way forward is highly personalized and individualized forms of education, educational technology markets eagerly offer a range of tools and digital platforms to meet these needs. While neo-liberalism is treated as the new normal or seen as invincible, opposing commercialized products becomes difficult, and even impossible. In addition to the changed image of practitioners in the neo-liberal era, the primary image of day-care centres can be seen as economized, even though the centres are not privately run (Roberts-Holmes and Moss, 2021).

In Finland, private ECEC covers approximately 20% of all operators. Over the past decade, private, commercial day-care companies in Finland have grown immensely in scale and been listed on stock exchanges, but have also been subjected to corporate restructuring. Nevertheless, even public early childhood education is not free of the central themes of neo-liberalism: to an increasing extent, municipalities are acquiring commercialized learning material and educational apps, and the value of ECEC in general is increasingly measured and calculated with business metrics. In terms of Finnish ECEC, precision education governance has been used to examine the educational reforms and changes affecting the increase in the number of private, for-profit ECEC services (Valkonen et al., 2021). As in many countries, the private ECEC services in Finland have been shown to be intertwined with commercial pedagogical products. For example, private, commercial day-care companies have signed cooperation agreements with companies that produce alternative kinds of material targeted at ECEC (Valkonen et al., 2021).

In this article, with a focus on digital apps, licensed programmes and ready-made learning material, our aim is to examine further practitioners’ understandings related to the benefits and need for such innovations. With survey data collected from Finnish ECEC teachers and other practitioners, we explore the expectations related to applying apps, games and licensed programmes. We ask: How do ECEC practitioners see their role in applying ready-made learning material in relation to their professionalism? Further, we are interested in how they comprehend the benefits and challenges. As studies have shown, governing affects teachers’ professionalism (e.g. Ball, 2015; Plum, 2012b). Ball (2003) argues that the privatization and commercialization of educational services stands against the aesthetics of welfare professionalism, and thus teachers are caught in between multiple demands. However, related to teachers as data collectors and organizers of data-producing environments, Plum (2012b) suggests that, as a teacher, one engages in data collection to show that one is doing one’s job. Thus, teachers also end up policing themselves. This affects teachers in multiple ways, in terms of practice, pedagogy, feelings and relationships. Along similar lines, Bradbury and Roberts-Holmes (2018: 51) write about the ‘prioritization of what can be observed and measured over what the children are interested in or need to know’. As noted, this has an impact on teachers especially, as they are responsible for the pedagogy to be implemented; however, this applies not only to teachers, but also to other practitioners. Consequently, it is interesting to examine if reasoning differs based on a respondent's profession. As Ball (2006) has argued, it is necessary to examine the impact of the increasing number of private commercial actors on education. In particular, Ball calls for the investigation of the ethical and moral consequences of commercialization, since it affects what kind of early childhood education work is seen meaningful and why.

Rizvi (2016: 2) states that private education is undoubtedly part of organizing education in contemporary societies, thus ‘the question is no longer whether private actors should be allowed in education, but rather, to what extent and how should their activities be regulated, and to what end’. Specifically related to the marketization of early childhood education, Naumann (2011) argues that a decrease in state regulation, such as standardized quality requirements (e.g. staff-to-child ratios, health and safety), as well as a decrease in state funding and subsidies to suppliers or service users have been part of creating a favourable context for the increase of private, commercial actors (see also Ruutiainen, 2022). In addition, favouring for-profit providers over public and publicly funded services has similarly accelerated these changes. Naumann (2011) emphasizes how not only efficiency but also market mechanisms, such as choice and competition, have generated an ideal platform for the increase in commercialization.

Undeniably, it is relevant to acknowledge the differences between education systems. In Finland, the early years of education have not been subjected to national-level assessments, such as the reception baseline assessment in the UK. The baseline assessment tests measure a child's basic skills in three areas of learning: communication and language, literacy and numeracy. Earlier, these were compulsory tests, but since 2020 teachers in the UK have had to assess the mathematics and language skills of every four- and five-year-old child starting school (Open Government License, 2018). According to Bradbury (2019a: 7), this policy context has led to the datafication of early childhood education in England, where ‘practices, values and subjectivities shift towards a focus on the production and analysis of data, most often related to assessments’. Even though formal assessment is not undertaken in Finland at this level, the questions of control and censorship through knowledge production are still relevant. Thus, despite the changes between national education systems, the neo-liberal ethos is also affecting the development of Finnish education. Domestication refers to the processes of how new global policy flows are adopted and integrated as part of existing policies and practices (see, Alasuutari, 2009; Säntti et al., 2021). According to Alasuutari (2009), once domesticated, new ideas and practices are no longer considered ‘new’ or ‘strange’ but a necessary and self-evident part of everyday life and language. We find particularly relevant what Alasuutari and Alasuutari (2012) emphasize with regard to the domestication of global ideas happening through so-called ‘local paths of change’, meaning that national paths of change are intertwined with transnational trends.

The research study

The data used in this research was produced through a survey focusing on the use of pedagogical products and tools in early childhood education. The survey was conducted in early 2020 and targeted ECEC staff in Finland. The survey produced 161 responses from the five largest municipalities in Finland. Most of the responses (72) were provided by childcare providers with practical nurse training. The second largest respondent group (29) was early childhood education teachers with a university Bachelor's degree. The third largest group (25) had been awarded a Bachelor's degree in Social Services by a university of applied sciences (with the qualification of ECEC teacher). ¹ The respondents also included teachers with a Master's degree (7) and special education teachers (3), as well as other singular professions, such as a sign-language instructor.

The survey comprised 21 questions, 12 of which were open-ended and 9 of which were multiple choice. The survey was conducted once and included three content areas: the apps, games and licensed programmes used; the reasons for choosing and using them; and ECEC practitioners’ understanding and knowledge related to the data collected through these products and tools, as well as their experiences related to using these innovations. In the survey, we asked about both commercial and non-commercial products and tools. While the focus of this article is on examining how the ECEC practitioners saw their role in applying ready-made learning material in their teaching as well as other work in early years settings, and how they comprehended it in relation to their professionalism, the division between commercial and non-commercial products proved to be challenging. First, the analysis revealed that some practitioners were not able to tell the difference between commercial and non-commercial products. For example, in their answers, they listed chargeable commercial products as non-commercial. One reason for the lack of knowledge about which products were commercial and which were not is that the data was collected during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, some commercial companies, such as a large digital-picture-book service, offered their products for free for a limited time. Furthermore, the extent of the non-responses, especially among the practical nurses, was rather high, being close to one-third of their answers. We will discuss this more at the end of the article, as it could be associated with the various ways in which ECEC practitioners are formally educated, as well as the lack of a trained workforce.

What is also worth critical consideration is that, in the survey, the formulation of the questions related to ECEC practitioners’ expectations about the positive effects of apps, programmes and other learning material, as well as their negative effects, could have affected their mindset and planted the assumption that, first of all, there are positive effects. In addition, as the survey was conducted only once, the answers related to positive and negative expectations were based on their own perceptions. As we will discuss later, the marketing strategies related to the effects of apps, programmes and other learning material seemed to mirror the practitioners’ perceptions.

The analysis was carried out using discourse analysis and we drew on Fairclough's (1992) theorizing on discourses. By analysing the data produced in the open-ended questions, we focused on discourses constructed in ECEC practitioners’ comprehension about the use of applying apps, games and licensed programmes as part of their work, especially the need for them and their advantages and disadvantages. Here, discourse is understood to be socially constitutive, both in the sense that it helps to maintain and reproduce the social status quo and in the sense that it contributes to transforming it (Fairclough and Wodak, 1997: 258). As Ball (2007: 2) argues, discourses provide ‘authoritative readings of prevailing economic and political conditions and problems’. They transmit an understanding of normality, as in the conception of ‘sensible and appropriate solutions’ (Ball, 2007: 2). Thus, the practitioners’ understandings about the advantages and disadvantages of digital learning material for ECEC, and their own profession, were examined as discursive practices. These discursive practices were considered as being produced and reproduced within the neo-liberal agenda of technocratic rationality and hegemonic pro-technology ideology. Consequently, we analysed the discourses not only as making claims about the need, advantages or disadvantages of using apps, games, licensed programmes and other innovations, but also as pointing to future action, such as evaluating Finnish ECEC and ECEC practitioners’ professionalism in connection with the rhetoric of ‘modern education’.

Making everyday life in ECEC easier with commercially produced innovations

We began the analysis by examining the ECEC practitioners’ expectations related to the positive effects of apps, programmes and other learning material before they started to use them, and continued with an analysis of the perceived positive effects. Below, we analyse specifically the discourses constructed through the answers related to the practitioners’ views on the expected influence of apps, games and licensed programmes on children's learning and practitioners’ work, and their added value for pedagogy based on the practitioners’ experiences.

The analysis showed that the expected positive and negative effects of the learning materials before they were taken into service and the perceived positive and negative effects that the practitioners reported after using the materials with children were quite similar. Thus, it seems that the learning materials worked as the practitioners expected. For example, the practitioners expected that apps would help children to learn new things and that the learning would be easy and motivating. Among the responses, apps were expected to help children learn not only letters, numbers, colours and letter–sound correspondence, but also reading and calculating skills. As one childcare provider indicated, at times the expectations were great: ‘A child would begin to understand letters and numbers, would learn the basics of mathematics and learn their mother tongue’ (116). Along similar lines, with a meta-ethnographical synthesis of teachers’ beliefs about technology integration in early childhood education, Mertala (2019) shows that a common positive belief was that technology integration would increase children's subject-related knowledge and skills, particularly in literacy and mathematics. As Bradbury (2019a) has suggested, in ECEC, a specific focus on literacy and mathematics correlates with the processes of ‘schoolification’, including more formal teaching. Bradbury warns about increased formalization, which is underpinned by the same rationality that prioritizes measurement over wider conceptions of learning. Schoolification has been criticized for bringing calculable pedagogy into early years education and therefore neglecting other important themes that are salient in early learning and development. Indeed, school readiness has produced an image of ECEC as a launch pad for compulsory schooling. Moreover, the language of readying young children through early intervention can expand into later school years and the workforce (Roberts-Holmes and Moss, 2021). The importance of early childhood education has often been justified by future investments of human capital and, within this discourse, 21st-century digital skills are in a central position.

In this research, many of the practitioners mentioned that apps support children in developing their information and communications technology skills. In addition to enhancing children's digital skills, it was considered that apps bring versatility and potentiality – new techniques, ideas and approaches – and thus also affect the meaningfulness of learning. In general, it was assumed that digital learning materials and apps would be helpful because, with them, it is ‘[e]asy to learn new things’ (15) and ‘[l]earning environments became more versatile’ (87). Even though most of the beliefs were positive, some of the teachers were more critical about technology's affordances concerning teaching. The quality of educational software drew criticism, and the teachers questioned whether children really learn from instructional games or whether they simply try to win a game without paying attention to the learning tasks. Yet the perceived positive effects were mostly particularly affirmative. Most of the practitioners listed outcomes such as children learning more easily and children being motivated, focused and interested to learn. Also, calmness, better concentration and increased self-confidence were listed as positive effects:

Children like to practise mathematics and Finnish with a tablet. During a rest, a Copperfox provides an imaginative journey and relaxation. (Childcare provider, 118)

Easy to use. Materials are within arm's reach. (Childcare provider, 71)

What I expected, everyday life becomes easier. (Bachelor of Social Services, 125)

The perceived positive effects – especially the answers that mentioned ‘the easing of everyday life’ related to practitioners’ work – reflect the marketization of many apps and new programmes. In marketization, it is common to claim that using apps, programmes or ready-made materials will save practitioners’ time, which they can then use for something else. Thus, these materials are presumed to streamline work in ECEC. However, the reflections that apps will make everyday life in ECEC easier, such as by ‘motivating children to learn’ and ‘enriching learning’, enclose the discourse that an app does something – that is to say, an app is perceived as an actor. In most of the answers, the practitioners did not refer at all to their own active role, or any other role, when using apps in learning. Consequently, when the practitioner’s role as an educator, as a professional, was not brought forward in these answers, the learning and interaction are assumed to be placed between the child and the app or other digital learning material – that is, the ECEC practitioners reported what apps are doing despite their teaching. The discourse of an app as an actor demonstrates a paradigm shift from the traditional focus of child-centred pedagogy. The ‘easiness’ in both the access and use of digital learning materials seems to bypass one of the core ideas of child-centred pedagogy – that is, the reciprocal interaction between the adult and the child. In addition, a few critical views suggested a concern that an app does something for the child. If an app affects children in a good or bad way in a vacuum, or at least without a practitioner's input, this constructs further a discourse in which an app becomes a self-contained actor. This discourse also demonstrates how the use of these innovations is not always planned pedagogically.

Supported by our data, but also based on our experiences as early teacher education lecturers, we suggest that ECEC practitioners are motivated to use new digital learning material and products in their daily work but do not necessarily acknowledge the limitations associated with their use. We refer to the study conducted by Campbell et al. (2014), which investigated phonics programmes used in early years education, and we suggest that the following research results are generalizable to other ready-made learning material targeted at ECEC. First, apps and other programmes are often used in isolation, with the aim of being systematic, explicit and rapid. Second, they concentrate on a narrow skills base, and therefore ready-made learning material is not able to meet the variety and transforming nature of the learning needs of each individual child. Third, commercial learning material often relies on drilling, practice and memorization, and employs strongly structured, adult-led teaching, which has been proven to be a questionable pedagogical approach when working with young children. The seminal consequence of these issues is that following a set script can be seen as undermining professional knowledge and ignoring practitioners’ ability to provide both developmentally appropriate and differentiated learning for children. In addition to these three points, it is worth mentioning that commercial learning material comes at a cost and sometimes also requires (chargeable) training. Although sellers refer to a research and evidence base in their marketing, it should be highlighted that evidence tends to be produced by the material developers themselves, with limited or no peer-reviewed research. Hence, the difference between marketing and academic research should be distinguished clearly, since commercial programmes make strong claims for their success in acquiring the necessary skills for the future (see Campbell et al., 2014: 41). Critical scholars have argued that a pedagogical turn towards calculation changes child-centred pedagogy into adult-led teaching; narrows the comprehensiveness of early years pedagogy; dismisses children's initiatives; and ignores creativity, excitement and wonder (Roberts-Holmes and Moss, 2021: 137). However, it seems that the developers of commercially produced material are one step ahead, and they do take account of playful learning, creativity, child participation and joy in their marketing strategies. This was clearly evident in some of the responses, as the expectations and perceived outcomes were listed as precisely the same: ‘Children's joy and learning in a fun way’ (80). Understandably, the practitioners did not express critical views when asked about their positive expectations or experiences, but when asked about their worries or concerns, the positive discourse was challenged to some degree.

Doubts and concerns over the use of apps, games and licensed programmes

Along similar lines, the responses related to the doubts and concerns the practitioners had after they had been using apps, games and programmes were aligned with their expectations, but were more accurate. As it turned out, among the strongest discourses in the data was the concern about limiting the use of digital technology. The practitioners’ worries were often related to children's media use, particularly the time spent on tablets: ‘Some children get hooked more easily on playing and can no longer focus on other teaching’ (88); ‘Is there already too much screen time since they seem to play all the time at home?’ (130). Answers like these were most often provided by childcare providers, and they reflect the ‘children as media victims’ discourse, in which children are considered to be both passive and incapable. This limiting of the digital technology discourse implies that apps are not used with the support of skilful and educated staff, but that children are using them without adult guidance. Because of this, the practitioners were worried about screen time and the content that children might be exposed to. If apps were a tool that practitioners used in a goal-directed way in their teaching, they would be expected to know what children were doing with their tablets and the amount of time they were spending on them.

The ECEC practitioners’ expectations could be interpreted as them expecting an app or digital programme to work by itself. Because there is confidence in the competencies of these innovations, children are left to use them independently. This verifies the previously presented argument of applying apps and licensed programmes in isolation, as it seems that digital apps in particular are not used in pedagogical interaction with ECEC practitioners. The learning is instead based on a child's actions as regulated and directed by the app. Few of the respondents reported that using apps and programmes required supervision in relation to both time and content. This relates to the previous question, where apps are seen as ‘a little helper’ and ‘organizer in a busy everyday life in ECEC’. Consequently, it becomes relevant to ask: Is the value of these apps and games only in freeing up practitioners’ time for other tasks? Apps and programmes are often sold with slogans like ‘Children can use them on their own’, ‘It gives you time to do something more important or urgent’ or ‘You can concentrate on something else’. Ultimately, it seems that the marketing strategies and discourses related to expectations merge: the apps are expected to work as the sellers say. We suggest that it is alarming if pedagogical interaction with children is not at the core of ECEC practitioners’ work. Certainly, practitioners’ engagement (or desire/willingness to engage) with children is also an important area of research. Currently, it is topical in Finland and the other Nordic countries because the shortage of qualified ECEC staff is a major challenge. We will return to this in the discussion and reflect on whether the demands of the work, stress and exhaustion, combined with insufficient pedagogical understanding of early years education, enhance the distancing of practitioners from pedagogical interaction.

The lack of pedagogical understanding was also reflected in uncertainty over what to do with various digital apps, games and programmes. According to our data, the practitioners were aware of their limited digital know-how, and this worried them. At one level, our data clearly demonstrates that the practitioners had more positive views than critical views related to using digital apps, games and programmes. Out of the 161 responses, only a few indicated a clear questioning of the increase in the use of digital apps, games and programmes – for example, ‘Is this all necessary for supporting children's learning?’ (7). However, at another level, the substantial number of non-responses, as well as answers indicating that the practitioners were not able to separate commercial and non-commercial products, accentuated the need to view the answers and the whole concept of the survey critically. While most of the answers did not reflect critical views or questioning of the increased number of digital products in ECEC, this might still not indicate that the practitioners did not want to develop their understanding of early years pedagogy to be able to consider the diversity, various needs, skills and interests of children. The data indicates quite the opposite as, according to the answers, the ECEC practitioners emphasized a need for training. Yet the need for training expressed in various answers revealed the insecurity generated by the increase of technology integration in early childhood education. As we will discuss next, in most of the questions concerning the use of apps, games or other digital material, the uncertainty was not addressed to these ready-made materials or digital tools, but to themselves as professionals, and, as a result, many of the practitioners claimed that they needed to become better app users.

Challenging their own professionalism

Similarly to Ball’s (2015) argument, our results indicate that, in neo-liberal education systems, teachers are caught between several demands. In addition, in our study, various answers brought forward the doubts and worries that other ECEC practitioners also had in relation to their own professionalism:

I would like to receive more training in using technology in teaching. (Teacher, university Bachelor's degree, 1)

My professional skills are not enough to use these programmes and equipment. (Childcare provider, 52)

Mainly, I feel guilty about not using them. (Bachelor of Social Services, 99)

Whether I can keep up or do I fall completely behind? (Bachelor of Social Services, 99)

These answers embody the way in which neo-liberal governance induces anxiety, humiliation, fear and compliance with what Ball (2003) calls ‘the terrors of performativity’, since the practitioners do not question the purposefulness of apps but their own professionalism. Such self-doubt is a result of technocratic governing and the pressure for increased efficiency and accountability. Thus, ECEC teachers and caregivers become self-governing entities (Plum, 2012b) who aspire to continually optimize themselves as ‘professionals’. However, the discourse related to professionalism mostly seems to entail technical knowledge and digital skills. And when technical skills overcome questions of pedagogy and child-centred approaches, there could be a danger that the teachers’ as well as other ECEC practitioners’ professionalism narrows. As we will discuss, such developments might also affect how different ECEC professionals understand their job description.

These ECEC practitioners have clearly internalized the neo-liberal discourse of the modern teacher, especially in terms of being technically skilled. Ideland (2020) argues that the teacher in a digitalized classroom is an incomplete potentiality in the making. She puts forward the idea that teachers are seen as unfinished and in need of professional development regarding digitalized education, which makes teachers the objects of change. The traditional teacher is no longer enough, and they are expected to work differently, which will change the way we comprehend the teaching profession. Also, Mertanen et al. (2021) state that the privatization, marketization, digitalization and datafication of education impose fundamental changes on the ways we understand what it means to educate, to know, or to be a teacher or a student. They discuss the new powerful partnership networks between local, national and global actors, scientific research bodies, for-profit industries and educational technology businesses. As has been shown, the number of such clusters – including close partnerships between educational services and educational technology companies’ products, such as commercial pedagogical innovations – is increasing rapidly in a range of places (Ideland, 2020; Valkonen et al., 2021). By acknowledging the challenges that emerge through the survey, especially ECEC practitioners’ confusion over commercial and non-commercial materials and products, as well as the general scarcity of critical views, we suggest that this does not exemplify ignorance on the part of ECEC professionals. Rather, it demonstrates the powerful partnerships and clustering that enable the excessive advertising of commercial apps, games or other learning materials, strengthening the discourse about the benefits of these products.

Based on our analysis, in Finnish ECEC, present-day ‘professionalism’ is associated with being equipped with versatile technical knowledge and skills. Interestingly, what Säntti et al. (2021) suggest in their article, based on an analysis of Finnish policy texts, is that there is a strong rhetoric about the urgent need to modernize Finnish schools. According to Säntti et al. (2021), the reasons for modernizing and changing Finnish education can be traced back to meeting the needs of the workforce and the economy. This demand related to modernizing Finnish education is also present in our data, so we could suggest that it is a discourse that has been internalized by ECEC practitioners.

At the same time as the intensified datafication of education, and especially the increase of digital data, leads to new forms and opportunities for monitoring and surveillance, an increase in transparency is promoted (Jarke and Breiter, 2019). As our results indicate, Finnish ECEC practitioners in most cases did not question the need for and importance of the increased collection of digital data. The survey answers reveal that many ECEC practitioners had no knowledge of the ethical questions related to collecting and preserving data from digital apps, games and programmes. The lack of critical or other challenging views can be interpreted as an indication of desire to be a modern ECEC practitioner, who sees technology as an important part of their work, while challenging the need for new technology represents and old, traditional and unintelligible view. Thus, the questions related to digital data and early childhood education pedagogy, as well as their own professionalism, are subdued by the internalized discourse of modernized Finnish education. At the same time, it is crucial to recognize the hegemony of pro-technology ideology. Mertala (2019) refers to Taguma et al. (2012), who point out that, for years, international stakeholders such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development have been recommending that early childhood education centres be equipped with technology, and these suggestions have affected national policies. Mertala (2019) continues by arguing that this successful pro-technology ideology has resulted in a hegemonic dogma, which can now be identified from teachers’ educational beliefs. As also found in our study, ECEC practitioners were profoundly positive about technology-enhanced learning in Finnish ECEC.

Discussion and conclusion

In our study, with its focus on new digital innovations and ready-made learning materials in Finnish ECEC settings, we have been able to show how practitioners’ understandings related to the benefits of and need for new apps, games and other innovations were in line with the marketization of commercially produced materials. By analysing the expectations and experiences related to applying apps, games and licensed programmes in early years settings, we have shown how technological content has been eagerly incorporated into the daily work of day-care centres. However, instead of emphasizing and scrutinizing the choices that individual ECEC practitioners have, we have aimed to draw attention to the rapidly growing business around learning platforms, innovations and professional development regarding digitalization – ‘commodities that have the power to change the very idea of teaching’ (Ideland, 2020: 36). We have aimed to comprehend in particular how governing affects teachers’ professionalism. Our results indicate that practitioners, including teachers in ECEC who are responsible for the pedagogy that is implemented, reflect on digital knowledge and technical skills as the sign of a modern teacher. In our survey, teachers, childcare providers and holders of a Bachelor's degree in Social Services referred to themselves as old-fashioned, and digitalization was seen as the marker of a modern, able and skilled professional. As our results have shown, the discourses of ‘modern’ and ‘old-fashioned’ have an influence on ECEC practitioners’ understanding of their professionalism. While their understanding of professionalism changes, their self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy increase.

Accordingly, the Finnish ECEC practitioners seemed to have internalized the pressure to enhance efficiency and accountability in ECEC. A distinct expression of this internalized discourse is that they saw it as their individual duty to develop themselves and become more technology-oriented. As Ball (2003: 216) emphasizes, the struggle over determining what is ‘valuable, effective or satisfactory performance and what measures or indicators are considered valid’ is currently highly individualized. These demands, and a constant feeling of being assessed, generate a high degree of uncertainty and instability in ECEC practitioners. Thus, ECEC practitioners become ontologically insecure – that is, they are unsure whether they are ‘doing enough, doing the right thing, doing as much as others, or as well as others, constantly looking to improve, to be better, to be excellent’ (Ball, 2003: 220). By internalizing the idea of a neo-liberal professional, ECEC practitioners believe that by acquiring new technological skills, they will improve their productivity and ‘add value’ to themselves (see Ball, 2003).

Such changes affect not only the different practitioners in ECEC, but also the way we see and value education. Furthermore, the role of the child in ECEC also changes. One aspect is that commercially produced innovations, both chargeable and non-chargeable, do not consider children's individuality or the needs of specific groups of children. Another major question to consider is that commercial pedagogical innovations disregard social, historical and other differences. This is connected with the previously mentioned issue of hindered pedagogical interaction between the child and the adult due to a child's independent use of learning materials – especially digital apps. This so-called ‘app pedagogy’ can thus deconstruct reciprocal interaction: by outsourcing teaching, practitioners distance themselves from children and simultaneously reduce opportunities to support children's learning. When ECEC practitioners – especially teachers who are responsible for pedagogy – do not recognize their own role in the learning process, their professionalism becomes reshaped and reoriented.

As we have discussed in this article, the internalized positive discourse related to increasing the use of new products in ECEC – commercial as well as non-commercial – indicates a narrow and uncritical understanding of pedagogy in relation to these products. However, ECEC professionals cannot be required to problematize the needs, benefits or challenges related to including new technological innovations while the hegemony of pro-technology ideology, intertwined with ontological insecurities, amplifies the already existing blurriness over the division of responsibilities and assignments. Undoubtedly, there is a need to emphasize the pedagogical knowledge of ECEC teachers, otherwise the internalized reflexivity that causes self-doubt (see Ball, 2003) will be all that is left. In addition, as early childhood education lecturers, we see that this reflects the scant theoretical understanding of early years pedagogy among different professionals working in ECEC. As suggested, this study supports the perception that the lack of qualified ECEC staff can partly explain the attractiveness of commercially produced materials: it is appealing to trust ready-made materials if you count on the producers of commercial material more than your own professionalism.

In addition, we suggest that there is a more general-level need for critical awareness and understanding of pedagogical knowledge in ECEC. Therefore, Finnish ECEC ought also to be studied in terms of precision education governance, as it discloses the questions of political power connected to directing educational services (see Mertanen et al., 2021). While the current discourses put pressure on individual practitioners related to efficiency and accountability, teacher education in Finland, provided as higher education at the Bachelor's and Master's levels, should give a stronger understanding of societal values and norms related to education. Confidence about their own professionalism might provide teachers with more certainty in trusting their pedagogical knowledge, rather than turning to the ‘easy solutions’ promised by commercial services.