Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

‘Won’t somebody think of the children’ is a battle cry calling into question the current positioning of the child and care within international/national childcare policy. This plea is constructed within a framework that recognizes that childcare policies may be guided, developed and implemented in good faith. Nevertheless, there are often (un)intended consequences. The documentary analysis traces the international and Irish quality, affordability and equality arguments underpinning childcare policies and reveals that we may have not only lost sight of the child, but the child is nowhere in sight ([un]intended consequence). While this documentary analysis makes specific reference to the Irish context, the discussion may nonetheless be relevant to the wider international Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) community. The analysis draws on my Irish study (Nolan, 2019), a social feminism exploration of ECEC leadership that revealed the difficulty the stakeholders had in marrying their understanding of children and care within the constantly changing international/national conceptualizations of both. While the depiction of the child and the current state of care in the sector may appear bleak, there is the hope that by drawing attention to this situation, somebody (you and I) will answer the call to battle, and begin a dialogue/debate on the child and care in ECEC.

Keywords

Early childhood childcare Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development care quality equality

The question ‘won’t somebody think of the children’ has a somewhat chequered background, from being employed to advocate on behalf of children to appearances in Mary Poppins and The Simpsons. Those analyzing the statement advise that it is a media tool to incite moral panic: a ‘battle cry of the faux-outraged columnist’ (Ferreday, 2010: 11) and/or an emotive device to prevent debate with the potential to suffocate order and justice (Marshall, 2005). Conversely, this article could be considered a genuine battle cry calling for action, questioning, debate and discussion about the positioning of the child and care within ECEC and social policy documents on childcare. The European Union (EU) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) who, among others, are guiding social and ECEC policies internationally, and the individual nations implementing these policies, may all be doing so in good faith. Nevertheless, these policies often have repercussions, and while these repercussions can appear to be unintended, they may be detrimental to the child and the ECEC stakeholders. Hence the term ‘(un)intended’ (Nitecki and Wasmuth, 2019; Zhao, 2018). The aim of this paper is to trace the quality, affordability and equality arguments for childcare within international and Irish social policy documents, to examine the positioning of the child and care within these documents and to explore how the child (0–3 years) seems to have been written out of the Irish policy script and the title of the sector. This paper does not intend to contribute to the discussion of theoretical and practical issues concerning what is required or how to meet the needs of the child, as this is a complicated, contested and complex area outside the scope of the paper.

On 19 November 2018, the child disappeared from the title of the Irish ECEC sector. The sector was renamed the Early Learning and Care (ELC) system (DCYA, 2018). The documentary analysis in this paper traces the progression (while not linear per se) from losing sight of the child to no child in sight.

The analysis drew on my Irish study (Nolan, 2019), a social feminism exploration of ECEC leadership involving interviews with 50 stakeholders (practitioners, professional organization representatives, lecturers, and government representatives). Social feminism was chosen as the framework to guide my study as it was anticipated that by examining the interlocking capitalist class structure and the ‘hierarchical sexual structuring of society’ and the accompanying ideologies, the power relations governing the practitioners’ relationship with leadership would be revealed (Eisenstein, 1979: 115). The study also revealed the difficulty the stakeholders had in marrying their understanding of ‘the child’ and their understanding of ‘care’ within the constantly changing international/national conceptualizations of both, and the progressive exclusion of the child from ECEC policies. This finding was the impetus for this documentary analysis and while the analysis makes specific reference to the Irish context, the discussion may nonetheless be relevant to the wider international ECEC community.

This paper commences with a brief overview of how the child and care have been conceptualized by successive generations of scholars, followed by an analysis of the quality, affordability and equality arguments for childcare and the [un]intended repercussions for the child and care. The paper culminates with a brief outline of alternative conceptualizations of care which may be more suitable to the ECEC sector, and a plea for a professional and public debate about the ‘child’ and ‘care’ in the ECEC sector. There is the potential, when attempting to analyze policy, to view the state as ‘all-determining’ on the one hand, and on the other hand, to take the view that through determined struggle, everything is possible (Dobrowolsky and Saint-Martin, 2005: 4). With this in mind, I strive to provide an informed and balanced critique of the policy documents discussed in this paper.

Children and care: Who cares?

There have been constant calls for a professional dialogue or public debate to question and discuss how we understand children, childhood, education and care (Cannella, 1997; Nitecki and Wasmuth, 2019; Urban and Swadener, 2016). While there has been significant attention paid to how we conceptualize children, however, it seems that less consideration has been given to how we understand care within ECEC (Langford, 2019; Van Laere, 2017).To summarize briefly, the understanding of the child has gone through several iterations. Piaget’s (1932) theory of cognitive development, in particular, was influential and was considered to be based on universal and scientific truths. However, this has been constantly questioned (Campbell-Barr and Nygård, 2014; Cannella, 1997; Penn, 2011; Stuart, 2013; Urban, 2010; Woodhead, 1996). Diverse economic, political, cultural and social influences, along with race, gender and class, have since been regarded as essential elements to consider in the sociology of childhood, and postmodernists have argued that a single universal concept of the child or childhood does not exist (Cagliari et al., 2016; Dahlberg et al., 2007). Post-structuralists, working through the lens of Foucault and his concern with the relationship between truth, knowledge and power, explored how these concepts shape and influence the understanding of the child (MacNaughton, 2005: 3). Of late, the Posthuman paradigm theorizes the child and childhood within the context of the ‘Anthropogenic’ (Somerville and Williams, 2015: 15–16) moving from ‘human centeredness’ to relationships with all earth-dwellers (Murris, 2016: 193).

Similarly, the notion of care has been influenced by political, economic, and cultural factors and is shaped by gender, class, and race. Politically, childcare has been described as a vote-winning issue (Daycare Trust, 2010), along with a ‘burden’ and a hindrance to gender equality and full employment (OECD, 2014: 2). Culturally, childcare is viewed from different perspectives; for example, research suggests that in the United Kingdom, Pakistani and Bangladeshi families are unlikely to use formal childcare as there is a tradition of caring for children at home (Campbell-Barr and Garnham, 2010: 32). Equally, the gendered ideology surrounding childcare suggests that it is something women do naturally (Van Laere et al., 2012) and does not involve training. The notion of care can be viewed as a value based on ideas of exchange – what counts, and this is contrasted with care as moral worth – what matters (Skeggs, 2004). Working-class women, in their struggle to be recognized and considered respectable, often choose childcare as their occupation, with care as their value and kudos (Skeggs, 2002) and choices around childcare are considered classed (McGinnity et al., 2015). Care has been described as the ‘Achilles’ heel’ of ECE, where a dilemma exists as to who should support children in their physical and emotional needs; often this role is not considered to be part of the ‘professional repertoire of teachers’ (Van Laere, 2017: 220).

The challenge of collaborating with diverse ECEC stakeholders on the question of care lies in the many and diverse understandings of care, and the difficulty of establishing a common definition. (Van Laere et al., 2014: 235). It is also difficult to find a definition of care in ECE research and policy. However, the OECD (2014) have described care as the ‘activity’ that ‘provides what is necessary for the health, well-being, maintenance, and protection of someone or something’ (3). On the other hand, work is considered an activity that requires ‘mental or physical effort and is costly in terms of time resources’. Thus, care is separated from the mental, and concerns the physical and the emotional, continuing the Cartesian supposition that there exists a dualism of mind and body (Van Laere et al., 2014). To commence our discussion, we look to the dominant discourse in Irish ECEC policy, the notion of quality childcare which appears to originate from among others the OECD and the EU.

Quality childcare and ECEC policy

In 1998, the OECD education committee launched a thematic review of twelve countries and found that access to and quality of ECE needed to improve (OECD, 2001). The OECD advised that their remit was to deliver new data ‘to provide valid, timely, and comparable international information to help support countries review and redesign policies to improve their early childhood services and systems’ (OECD, 2019). It has been questioned how the OECD, whose mission is the growth of market economies, has emerged as an increasingly ‘influential global authority for education’ in general (Tröhler et al., 2014: 4) and ECEC in particular (Moss, 2016). Nevertheless, the OECD policy recommendations on quality (OECD, 2001, 2006, 2012, 2015, 2017) have had considerable influence on international ECE policy (Karagrigoriou, 2018; Peers, 2015; Urban, 2018). While it is impossible to arrive at a universally agreed definition of quality (Elwick et al., 2018), it is often linked to a ‘discourse of certainty and mastery, linearity and predetermined outcomes, objectivity and universality’ (Dahlberg and Moss, 2008: 22). The influence on Irish ECE policy of the OECD recommendations on quality, while not documented, is noteworthy. Irish policy appears to have responded to and mirrored the focus, philosophy and time-frame of the OECD Starting Strong papers. For example, when Starting Strong V (OECD, 2017a) was examining the transitions between ECEC and primary education, the Irish government was holding consultations on the transitions from ECEC to primary school (NCCA, 2016).

Starting Strong I and II (OECD, 2001, 2006) focused on the voices of the child, parent and community in ECEC policy, program and assessment and this was mirrored in the creation of Siolta the Irish early years Quality Standards Framework (Centre for Early Childhood Development and Education, 2006) (CECDE).

The understanding outlined in Starting Strong II that quality was context specific was replaced in Starting Strong III (OECD, 2012) by a standardized tool kit, regulations and goals, along with the notion of parents as consumers, who were responsible for high-quality learning at home. This was followed by Starting Strong IV (OECD, 2015) where the prominence of monitoring and evaluation positioned quality as a potential control technology (Paananen et al., 2015). This development prompted Urban (2014: 83) to describe Starting Strong III as ‘Starting Wrong’. This shift was emulated in the Irish ECE policy where quality became associated with regulations and inspections in the form of the Education Focused Inspection (DES, 2016) and the Tusla (2018) Quality and Regulatory Framework. It has also been proposed that the notion of quality has become embedded in ECEC policy through the story of quality, cognitive development and high returns (Moss and Dahlberg, 2008).

[Un]intended consequences of quality childcare: Losing sight of the child (3–5 years)

The alignment of cognitive development and economic high returns has been attributed to James Heckman and his Human Capital Theory, a productivity argument for investing in disadvantaged young children, a cost-effective measure to boost economic productivity and reduce future social costs (Heckman, 2008; Heckman and Masterov, 2007). This theory underpins the OECD Starting Strong papers and is premised on the Perry Preschool Project (1962), a 40-year longitudinal study of children who attended preschool, which found that they were more likely to be employed, to have graduated from high school, and to earn more than non-participants.

The researchers claimed a $7.16 return on each dollar of investment in preschool provision; however, the small sample size (58 children) and the ‘inability’ of other programs to replicate the outcomes of the study suggested the results may be flawed (Burke and Sheffield, 2013: 4). Moreover, policy advisors and policymakers fail to mention that the Perry Project offered transportation for children to attend school. The project had a ratio of 4/5 pupils per teacher and the teachers made afternoon visits to the children’s homes to support the parents, and provided parent classes (Heckman, 1999). Heckman issued a cautionary note that ‘this research needs to be deepened and broadened in order to create effective policy’ (Heckman, 2011: 2). Nevertheless, the Heckmanization of early years (Van Laere, 2017) has migrated from the USA and his ideology can be observed in the many early years policies and economic discourses throughout the world (Stuart, 2013) including Irish policy documents such as Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures (DCYA, 2014).

Research in Ireland and internationally is increasingly pointing to the returns that can accrue from investing in the early years – from supporting children’s early cognitive, social and emotional development, to enhancing school readiness generating long term returns to the State and society (DCYA, 2014: xi).

The alliance of cognitive development and economic success has placed the child as ‘becoming in relation to the skills they will gain rather than valuing those that they already have’ (Campbell-Barr and Nygård, 2014: 351). The child is discussed in the future tense, what they can become. As such, ECEC has become the site for the development of the citizens of the world of tomorrow (European Commission, 2011). Hayes and Filipović (2018: 220) contend that with such a future-focus ‘there is a danger that there is the loss of the present child’ with the focus instead on future productive and efficient citizens.

While the OECD and Irish policymakers continue to utilize the productivity argument for investing in ECEC (3–5 Years), McGinnity et al. (2015) examined a group of 11,134 Irish children from the Growing Up in Ireland study, to examine non-parental childcare, particularly centre-based childcare, and its potential impact on children’s cognitive development. Unlike Heckman, these researchers found that there was no difference in vocabulary scores between the children (3–5 years) in parental and non-parental care. Giving credence to the newspaper headline that children in crèches ‘fare as well’ as those at home (Holland, 2016), what the paper failed to mention is that children in nonparental care for over 30 hours per week had slightly lower vocabulary scores at age 5 (McGinnity et al., 2015). The OECD (2011) advised that

Some evidence suggests that mothers returning to work before the child is 6 months old may have negative effects on child cognitive outcomes, particularly when employment is on a full-time basis. The effects are, however, small, not universally observed and, in certain circumstances balanced by positive effects related to having extra family income (OECD, 2011: 4).

A body of literature was published in the 1990s outlining the potential negative effects on children (under 3 years) in care (Belsky, 1990; Callister, 1994; Clarke-Stewart, 1991; Ocniltree, 1994). However, these findings have been overlooked in ECEC policy and similarly, the child (under 3 years) has been overlooked, as there appears to be no sight of this child in ECEC policy documents.

[Un]intended consequences of quality childcare II: No sight of the child (under 3 years)

The [un]intended consequence of prioritizing cognitive development and education over care has distanced care from the education of the preschool child (3–5 years) and relegated care to the young child (under 3 years) (Van Laere et al., 2012). Much has been written about this care and education divide in ECEC, and its negative consequences, including the higher priority, investment and qualification levels for education and the neglect of care and the under-3s (Bennet, 2003; Dahlberg and Moss, 2008; Hayes and Bradley, 2008; Penn, 2011). Van Laere et al. (2012), in their survey examining the role of ECEC assistants in 15 countries, found that care in ECEC is seen as a stage before children can progress to learning. The need for care positions children (0–3 years) as ‘deficit meaning children’ (i.e. lacking or deficient in the cognitive capacity for learning) who are at variance with ‘white, middle-class, able norms’ (Van Laere et al., 2012: 535). As such, the child (under 3 years) is waiting to learn and this image of the child is not congruent with organizations and policies that are concerned with the educative and productive returns of Human Capital theory (Heckman, 2011).

The education and care division is evident in the Irish ECEC, where the Department of Education is concerned with the child (3–5 years) and Tusla (child welfare) is responsible for the children (0–5), thus breaking the continuity of the child’s care and education. Interestingly, the Heckman curve outlined that investing in 0–3 years has the highest returns in Human Capital. Research also claimed that investing in this age group may be more important for children’s development (Brooke and Sheffield, 2013; McKeown et al., 2015). Nevertheless, it would appear that ECEC policy has lost sight of the child (0–3 years).

The stakeholders in my study (Nolan, 2019) suggested that the youngest children (0–3 years) had the ‘least economic value in society’ and one of the lecturers voiced the concern of the majority of stakeholders that ‘the 0- to 3-year-olds are completely ignored, they are not part of the productivity agenda, like the older ones. They have no resources, no support and minimum qualifications are acceptable’. It would seem that the child (under 3 years) has been written out of the quality policy script. The argument for the development of human capital and economic prosperity was further enhanced with the EU (2016, 2017) and the OECD (2011, 2017b) recommendations to increase affordable and quality childcare to facilitate full employment.

Quantifying childcare and ECEC policy

Starting with the 2002 Barcelona objectives (European Commission, 2013), the EU had requested increasing high-quality affordable childcare to accommodate 90% of children from age 3 until mandatory school age, and 33% of children under 3 years of age. The intention was to facilitate the full participation of women in the labour market. This objective was restated in the European Pact for Gender Equality (2011–2020) and referred to in the Europe 2020 Strategy (EU, 2010). The European Commission (2016), the Country Specific Recommendations (CSRs) (2016), Chambers Ireland (2015) International Economic Consultants (2013) and the Economic, and Social Research Institute (ESRI)(2018), all recommended increasing affordable and high-quality childcare to facilitate working parents. While it could be argued that quality by its very definition cannot be ‘affordable’ (Elwick et al., 2018: 516), nevertheless, it has been acknowledged that ECEC has been reduced to ‘a calculation of economic cost and benefits’ (Moss, 2014: 67). Similarly, a government representative in my study (Nolan, 2019) explained that the ‘emphasis is on votes and keeping parents happy, the importance of parents as voters cannot be underestimated … it is all about affordable childcare’. The Irish Affordable Childcare Act was legislated in 2018 (Houses of the Oireachtas, 2018) and was underpinned by a DCYA policy document (2016). However, the document appeared to be more concerned with affordability for parents and market activation than the child (McArdle, 2017; Moloney, 2016). While the Act stated that ‘a child-centered approach should be adopted when designing the scheme’, this sentence was the only reference to ‘child-centered’ in the document (Moloney, 2016: 8). One of the [un]intended consequences of the affordable childcare policy has been the positioning of care as childcare for parents, rather than an ‘ethic of care' (Moss, 2014: 7) and the child appears to have been lost in this transaction.

[Un]intended consequences of quantifying childcare: The child lost in the transaction

The dual role of childcare as the care of children to facilitate working parents (mothers in particular) and the role of child education and development have become merged in policy and discourse. And yet these are separate issues. The merging of these two policy areas ‘confuses and clouds the issue and reflects the way one policy issue can influence another in an unhelpful way’ (Hayes, 2001: 79). The stakeholders in the Irish study (Nolan, 2019) advised that the dominance of the affordable childcare discourse in Irish policy has side-lined the needs of the child and created confusion for practitioners. The practitioners now ask ‘what is ECEC all about, are they educators, carers, both, or affordable service providers? The lack of affordable childcare was considered the principal barrier to women’s participation in the workforce and an obstacle to gender equality (OECD, 2011). However, while the issue is gender equality and childcare, the only reference to the child is how to provide childcare for parents.

Equality (gender) and ECE policy

The Council of Ministers adopted the European Pact for Gender Equality (2011–2020) and ‘Ireland currently chairs the Commission until 2020’ (DOJE, 2017: 9). The Irish National Strategy for Women and Girls 2017–2020: Creating a Better Society for All (DOJE, 2017: 3) was developed during this period and focused on increased investment in childcare. However, the economic undertones are prevalent in this document and it reiterates the OECD estimate that achieving ‘gender parity would add 0.6 percentage points to the world’s annual GDP growth rate. It has calculated the economic gain for the world at US$12 trillion’ (DOJE, 2017: 7), giving credence to the claim that gender equality policies are more concerned with economic objectives than any real concern for women’s ambitions (Blackmore, 2013).

Care has been identified as the biggest obstacle to gender equality and described as a struggle and a burden (EU, 2017). The unequal distribution of unpaid care work between women and men represents an infringement of women’s rights (UN, 2013) and a ‘brake on their economic empowerment’ (OECD, 2014: 1). This speaks to the ideal type of neo-liberal entrepreneurial citizen, ‘who is unencumbered by care responsibilities and is free to play the capitalist games in a global context’ (Lynch et al., 2012: 83). The OECD (2014) have estimated:

Every minute more that a woman spends on unpaid care work represents one minute less that she could be potentially spending on market-related activities or investing in her educational and vocational skills. A decrease in women’s unpaid care work is related to a ten percentage point increase in women’s labor force participation rate (for a given level of GDP per capita, fertility rate, female unemployment rate, female education, urbanization rate, and maternity leave) (OECD, 2014: 2–3).

The absence of the child and their care is palpable in these policy documents. Could this be ‘rejection by omission’? (St Pierre, 2002: 25) or is it avoidance? It could be considered avoidance as the most embittered feminist battles are centered on childcare (Fraser, 2016). However, the steady and progressive omission of the child from ECEC policies may be [un]intentional, but is more likely to be rejection, when care is viewed as the key barrier to women’s freedoms and the fulfilment of their rights. This understanding positions ‘childcare (in contrast to living alongside children) as labor, to be measured, priced and delegated rather than valued and enjoyed’ (Alderson, 2017: 309).

[Un]intended consequences of equality (gender) – Where is the child?

In the Irish policy document Better Outcomes – Brighter Futures (DCYA, 2014) the government recognized that parents were the foundation for good child outcomes and have significant influence, particularly in the early years of children’s lives. The importance of maternity, adoptive, parental and carer’s leave in enabling parents to be with their children in the early days and at critical times (DCYA, 2014: 27) was recognized. Conversely, there was limited mention of care. However, recent policy developments (DCYA, 2018) have witnessed a U-turn on care. The importance of care and attachment in the first year of the child’s life has emerged and this is a welcome development. Nevertheless, the decision to include young babies in policy may be more about increasing fertility rates than meeting the needs of young children. The OECD (2003) Babies and Bosses (Ireland) had flagged that the failure to assist parents to find their preferred work and family balance had implications for both labor supply and family decisions and fertility. Fraser (2016: 31) had warned that when society concurrently ‘withdraws public support for social reproduction and conscripts the chief providers of it into long and gruelling hours of paid work, it depletes the very social capacities on which it depends’. The 2.1 children per woman needed for population replacement is not occurring (OECD, 2019: 1). The discourse that every minute a woman spends on care reduces their value in the labour market (OECD, 2015) has been replaced by the notion that getting ‘family-friendly policies right will help reduce poverty, promote child development, enhance equity between men and women, and stem the fall in birth-rates’ (OECD, 2019: 1).

The Irish strategy document ‘First 5: A whole-of-government strategy for babies, young children and their families’ (DCYA, 2018) outlined the family-friendly approach to the early years. There are four goals in the strategy. The first goal is developing strong and supportive families and communities, with the aim of ‘balancing working and caring, providing Information, services, supports and practical and material resources for parents’ (DCYA, 2018: 4). Evidence of the importance of attachment and investing in the 0–3-year-old child, which had been ignored, is now utilized and the need to limit children’s hours in ELC settings and having them spend time with parents, especially in the first year, in a ‘caring, nurturing and playful home environment’ is prioritized (DCYA, 2018: 13). All of which appears to be at odds with the Barcelona targets (EU, 2002). The source of this sea change, the European Union Directive on Work-Life Balance (European Parliament, 2018) outlined the crux of the argument: while supporting ‘parents’ access to affordable ELC is essential, a broader package of supports and provisions for parents of young children is also required to facilitate participation in employment’ (DCYA, 2018: 38).

The notion of caring occurs throughout the document (DCYA, 2018) and may speak more to the idea of children’s emotional and social needs and an ethics of care than the previous OECD understanding of care as the ‘activity’ that ‘provides what is necessary for the health, well-being, maintenance, and protection of someone or something’ (OECD, 2014: 3). However, in DCYA, 2018, this notion of care has been limited to the infant under 1 year. Similarly, the possibility that there may be adverse effects of prolonged periods in centre-based ECEC is limited to young children under 1, and the policy document argues that from the age of 2–3 onwards children do better in high-quality Early Learning and Care services than if they remain solely at home (DCYA, 2018: 38). It would seem that the goal of full employment and replacing the population has been cloaked in the guise and language of gender equality and caring for infants under one year of age. On 19 November 2018, the ‘First 5: A whole-of-government strategy for babies, young children and their families’ (DCYA, 2018) was published and the child (1–5 years) was written out of the childcare policy script. On that same date the child disappeared from the title of the Irish sector: the previous title of the sector was ECEC; without any consultation with the stakeholders the sector was renamed the Early Learning and Care (ELC) system (DCYA, 2018).

Concluding thoughts

In sum: it appears that the Irish government has been deeply influenced by the EU and the OECD policy guidelines and recommendations for ECEC, and while the Irish government and international organizations may in good faith be developing childcare policies, nevertheless there are often (un)intended consequences. The quality and economic childcare policies in the shape of Human Capital theory have recommended the cognitive development of the child (3–5 years) as a precondition for productive workers and economic success in the future. The [un]intended consequence of this policy approach is that we may be losing sight of the present child (3–5 years) and have lost sight of the child (0–3 years). Policies relating to affordable childcare have positioned early years care as childcare for parents rather than focusing on the social, physical and emotional needs of children, and the child has become lost in this transaction. Care as a prerequisite for gender equality, work-life balance and birth rates has brought the caring of the infant to centre stage, but this focus on providing childcare primarily to serve the needs of adults has removed the child (1–5 years) from the policy discourse and the title of the Irish ECEC sector.

The constantly-changing nature of conceptualizing ‘the child’ and ‘care’ within policy documents could imply that the child has become a ruse to facilitate full employment and economy productivity, and what Fraser (2016: 31) describes as the subordination of care to productivity. Fraser adds that the current, financialized form of capitalism is thoroughly consuming our capacities to sustain social bonds (care). The result is a ‘crisis of care’ that is every bit as serious and systemic as the current ecological crisis (Fraser, 2016: 31). An ethics of care (Held, 1993; Lynch et al., 2012; Noddings, 1984; Tronto, 1993) has been proposed as an antidote to the current ‘careless society’ we inhabit (Lynch et al., 2012: 83) and as an approach to ECEC (Taggart, 2011, 2014). The difficulty with the notion of an ethics of care is that it can be viewed as residing in women’s capacities to care, to nurture and to mother (Held, 1993) all of which have been criticized as they have traditionally been mechanisms of women’s oppression (Allen, 2016). In an Irish context, Garrity and Canavan (2017: 764) have called for ‘communities of care’ and Hayes (2012) suggested reconceptualizing care as nurture, elevating the educative role of caring to what she describes as a nurturing pedagogy. Within this framework ‘nurturing and fostering learning’ replaces the custodial notion of care as minding (Hayes, 2012: xvi).

In the Irish study (Nolan, 2019), two lecturers outlined that ECEC could be considered an experiment, and the effects of constantly changing the conditions of the focus of the experiment (the child) and the conditions of the experiment (care) may have adverse and long-term effects on the child. Similarly, Sarah Hrdy has described ECEC as an ‘evolutionary novelty, completely experimental process’ (Hrdy, as cited in Penn, 2011: 1). The EU has described ‘the puzzle of care in the private life of working women and men’ and how it ‘must be resolved, using a wide set of tools, ranging from legislative and policy measures to legal action and funding’ (EU, 2019: 1), with no mention of the child.

Whether ECEC is an experiment or a puzzle, the absence of the child (1–2 years) and the diminishing presence of the child (3–5 years) within the discourse of international and Irish policies on childcare require attention. While the depiction of the child and the current state of care in the sector may appear dark (Wasmuth and Nitecki, 2017), there is the hope that by drawing attention to this situation, somebody (you and I) will not resist the battle call and will begin a dialogue and debate on the child and care in ECEC.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Geraldine K Nolan

Geraldine K Nolan completed a BA (Hons) in English (UCC) and a Postgraduate Diploma in Montessori Education (AMI) in the early 1980s, and worked in a Montessori school (3-12 years) in San Francisco USA. She returned to education, trained as a primary teacher (St Andrews Scotland), and worked in the Irish primary sector before opening a Montessori school in 1991, retiring in 2016. During this period, she undertook a part-time BA (Hons) (ECEC) (Carlow IT) and a MEd in Trinity College Dublin (Distinction). Currently, Geraldine is a PhD candidate in the school of education (Trinity College). She is passionate about the care and welfare of the child and the ECEC practitioner, and her research explores the potential of leadership to draw ECEC practitioners together with the shared purpose of developing their working conditions.

References

Alderson

(2017) Common criticisms of children’s rights and 25 years of the IJCR. The International Journal of Children’s Rights 25(2): 307– 319.

Allen

(2016) Feminist perspectives on power. Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2016/entries/feminist-power/ (accessed 10 November 2020).

Belsky

(1990) Parental and nonparental child care and children’s socioemotional development: A decade in review. Journal of Marriage and the Family 52(4): 885–903.

Bennett

(2003) Starting strong: The persistent division between care and education. Early Childhood Research 1(1): 21–48.

Blackmore

(2013) A feminist critical perspective on educational leadership. International Journal of Leadership in Education 16(2): 139–154.

Burke

Sheffield

(2013) Universal preschool’s empty promises. Backgrounder 2773: 1–8. Available at: http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2013/pdf/bg2773.pdf (accessed 10 August 2019).

Cagliari

Castagnetti

Giudici

Rinaldi

Vecchi

Moss

(2016) Loris Malaguzzi and the Schools of Reggio Emilia: A Selection of his Writings and Speeches, 1945–1993. London: Routledge.

Callister

(1994) Striking a Balance: Families, Work, and Early Childhood Education. Wellington: New Zealand Council for Educational Research.

Campbell-Barr

Garnham

(2010) What parents want–Parents and childcare: A literature review. Commissioned by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Available at: https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/research-report-66-childcare-review-of-what-parents-want.pdf (accessed 29 April 2020).

10.

Campbell-Barr

Nygård

(2014) Losing sight of the child? Human capital theory and its role for early childhood education and care policies in Finland and England since the Mid-1990s. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood 15(4): 346–359.

11.

Cannella

(1997) Deconstructing Early Childhood Education: Social Justice and Revolution. New York: Peter Lang.

12.

Centre for Early Childhood Development and Education (2006) Síolta: The National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education. Dublin: Centre for Early Childhood Development and Education.

13.

Chambers Ireland (2015) Investing for tomorrow: Supporting the economy through affordable childcare. Available at: www.chambers.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Investing-for-Tomorrow-CI-Guide-to-Childcare-FINAL.pdf (accessed 12 August 2019).

14.

Clarke-Stewart

(1991) A home is not a school: The effects of child care on children’s development. Journal of Social Issues 47(2): 105–123.

15.

Council of the European Union (2011) Council conclusions on the European Pact for gender equality for the period 2011 – 2020. Available at: www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/lsa/119628.pdf (accessed 12 August 2019).

16.

Dahlberg

Moss

(2008) Beyond quality in early childhood education and care – languages of evaluation. DICE Report 6(2):21–26.

17.

Dahlberg

Moss

Pence

(2007) Beyond Quality in Early Childhood Education and Care: Languages of Evaluation. Oxford: Routledge.

18.

Daycare Trust (2010) Keeping Mum: Childcare as a Vote Winning Issue. London: Daycare Trust/Bounty.

19.

Department of Children and Youth Affairs (DCYA) (2014) Better Outcomes – Brighter Futures. National policy framework for children and young people 2014–2020. Dublin: Government Stationery Office.

20.

Department of Children and Youth Affairs (DCYA) (2016) Policy paper on the development of a new single affordable childcare scheme. Available at: www.dcya.gov.ie/documents/earlyyears/20161028PolicyPaper.pdf (accessed 25 July 2019).

21.

Department of Children and Youth Affairs (DCYA) (2018) First 5: A whole-of-government strategy for babies, young children and their families 2019–2028. Available at: https://www.dcya.gov.ie/docs/EN/19-11-2018- (accessed 25 July 2019)

22.

Department of Education and Skills (DES) (2016) Early-years education inspection. Available at: www.education.ie/en/Publications/Inspection-Reports-Publications/Early-Years-Education-Reports/(accessed 25 July 2019).

23.

Department of Justice and Equality (DOJE) (2017) National strategy for women and girls 2017–2020: Creating a better society for all. Available at: http://justice.ie/en/JELR/National_Strategy_for_Women_and_Girls_2017_-_2020.pdf/Files/National_Strategy_for_Women_and_Girls_2017_-_2020.pdf (accessed 14 August 2019).

24.

Dobrowolsky

Saint-Martin

(2005) Agency, actors and change in a child-focused future: ‘Path dependency’ problematized. Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 43(1): 1–33.

25.

Economic and Social Research Institute ESRI (2018) Maternal employment and the cost of childcare in Ireland. Available at: www.esri.ie/system/files?file=media/file-uploads/2018-11/RS73.pdf (accessed 28 July 2019).

26.

Eisenstein

(1979) Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism. New York: Monthly Review.

27.

Elwick

Osgood

Robertson

Sakr

Wilson

(2018) In pursuit of quality: Early childhood qualifications and training policy. Journal of Education Policy 33(4): 510–525.

28.

European Commission (2011) Early childhood education and care: Providing all our children with the best start for the world of tomorrow. Available at: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2011:0066:FIN:EN:PDF (accessed 15 July 2019).

29.

European Commission (2013) Barcelona objectives: The development of childcare facilities for young children in Europe with a view to sustainable and inclusive growth. Brussels. Available at: www.ec.europa.eu/justice/genderequality/files/documents/130531_barcelona_en.pdf (accessed 28 July 2019).

30.

EU Commission (2016) European semester: Country specific recommendation/council recommendation – Ireland. Available at: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv%3AOJ.C_.2016.299.01.0065.01.ENG&toc=OJ%3AC%3A2016%3A299%3ATOCr (accessed 15 July 2019).

31.

European Parliament (2017) A new directive on worklife balance. Available at: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2018/614708/EPRS_BRI(2018)614708_EN.pdf (accessed 15 July 2019).

32.

European Union (2017) Gender equality index 2017 measuring gender equality in the European Union 2005-2015. Available at: https://eige.europa.eu/publications/gender-equality-index-2017-measuring-gender-equality-european-union-2005-2015-report (accessed 15 July 2019).

33.

Fraser

(2016) Capitalism’s Crisis of Care. Dissent 63(4): 30–37.

34.

Ferreday

(2010) Reading disorders: Online suicide and the death of hope. Journal for Cultural Research 14(4): 409–426.

35.

Garrity

Canavan

(2017) Trust, responsiveness, and communities of care: An ethnographic study of the significance and development of parent-caregiver relationships in Irish early years settings. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 25(5): 747–767.

36.

Hayes

(2001) Early childhood education in Ireland: Policy, provision and practice. Administration 49(3): 43–67.

37.

Hayes

(2012) An introduction: Children at the center of practice In: Mhic Mhathúna M and Taylor M (eds) Early Childhood Education & Care: An Introduction for Students in Ireland. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, xi–xviii.

38.

Hayes N and Bradley S (2008) Early childhood education and care in Ireland: Getting it right for children. Centre for Social and Educational Research Early childhood care and education policy seminar 2, Dublin, Ireland, 24 January 2008, pp.1–32. Dublin: Arrow @ Technological University Dublin. Available at: https://arrow.tudublin.ie/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=csercon (accessed 29 April 2020).

39.

Hayes

Filipović

(2018) Nurturing ‘buds of development’: From outcomes to opportunities in early childhood practice. International Journal of Early Years Education 26(3): 220–232.

40.

Heckman

(1999) Policies to foster human capital. Research in Economics 54(1): 35–36.

41.

Heckman

(2008) Schools, skills, and synapses. Economic Inquiry 46(3): 289–324.

42.

Heckman

(2011) Research agenda for understanding the dynamics of skill formation in American Society. Available at: https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=370 (accessed 12 August 2019).

43.

Heckman

Masterov

(2007) The productivity argument for investing in young children. Available at: http://ftp.iza.org/dp2725.pdf (accessed 12 August 2019).

44.

Held

(1993) Feminist Morality: Transforming Culture, Society, and Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

45.

Holland

(2016) Children in creches ‘fare as well’ as those at home. The Irish Times, 2 November.

46.

Houses of the Oireachtas (2018) Childcare support act (2018). Available at: www.oireachtas.ie/en/bills/bill/2017/153/ (accessed 25 July 2019).

47.

International Economic Consultants (2013) Indecon report on support for childcare for working families and implications for employment. Available at: www.donegalchildcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Supporting-Working-Families.pdf (accessed 25 July 2019).

48.

Nolan

K (2019) Early childhood education and care: Gender, class and women. Who care(s)? Unpublished PhD Thesis, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

49.

Karagrigoriou

(2018) Leadership in democratic citizenship education: Politics and praxis. International Journal of Leadership in Education 21(1): 50–65.

50.

Langford

(2019) Theorizing Feminist Ethics of Care in Early Childhood Practice: Possibilities and Dangers. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

51.

Lynch

Grummell

Devine

(2012) New Managerialism in Education: Commercialization, Carelessness, and Gender. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

52.

McArdle

(2017) Towards the affordable childcare scheme: An opportunity to improve quality of provision for our youngest children. In Education Matters Yearbook 2017–2018, 89–94. Available at: https://educationmatters.ie/downloads/YB20172018V2-Intro.pdf (accessed 29 April 2020).

53.

McGinnity

Russell

Murray

(2015) Growing up in Ireland: Non-Parental Childcare and Child Cognitive Outcomes at Age 5. Dublin: The Stationary Office.

54.

McKeown

Haase

Pratschke

(2015) Determinants of child outcomes in a cohort of children in the free pre-school year in Ireland, 2012/2013. Irish Educational Studies 34(3): 245–263.

55.

MacNaughton

(2005) Doing Foucault in Early Childhood Studies: Applying Post structural Ideas. London and New York: Routledge.

56.

Marshall

(2005) ‘Think of the children’: An ethics fallacy. Ethics Scoreboard. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20140222023732/http://www.ethicsscoreboard.com/list/children.html (accessed 12 August 2019).

57.

Moloney

(2016) The affordable childcare scheme: Parental panacea, or pedagogical paradox. ResearchGate 1–13. Available at: www.researchgate.net/publication/309864391 (accessed 15 August 2019).

58.

Moss

(2014) Transformative Change and Real Utopias in Early Childhood Education: A Story of Democracy, Experimentation, and Potentiality. New York: Routledge.

59.

Moss

Dahlberg

(2008) Beyond quality in early childhood education and care: Languages of evaluation. New Zealand Journal of Teachers’ Work 5(1): 3–12.

60.

Murris (2016) The Posthuman Child: Educational Transformation Through Philosophy with Picturebooks (Contesting Early Childhood). London: Routledge.

61.

National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) (2016) Transition from preschool to primary school: Learning from research, policy and practice. Executive summaries. Dublin: National Council for Curriculum and Assessment.

62.

Nitecki

Wasmuth

(2019) Policy futures in education. Call for proposals. (Un)intended consequences in current ecec policies: revealing and examining hidden agendas. Available at: journals.sagepub.com/pb-assets/cmscontent/PFE/PFE%20CfP%20-%20Current%20ECEC%20Policies-1551784374597.pdf (accessed 28 November 2019).

63.

Noddings

(1984) Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education. Berkeley: University of California Press.

64.

Ocniltree

(1994) Effects of child care on young children. Forty years of research. Early Childhood Study Paper no. 5. Melbourne: Australian Institute of Family Studies.

65.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2000) Start strong: Early childhood education and care. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

66.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2003) Babies and bosses – reconciling work and family life (volume 2): Austria, Ireland and Japan. Paris: OECD Publishing. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264104204-en (accessed 26 July 2019).

67.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2006) Start strong II: Early childhood education and care. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

68.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2010) Gender brief: Version. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

69.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2011) How can we do better for our families? Issues, outcomes, policy objectives and recommendations. Available at: https://www.oecd.org/els/family/47701128.pdf (accessed 4 August 2019).

70.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2012) Starting strong III: A quality toolbox for early childhood education and care. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

71.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2014) Unpaid care work: The missing link in the analysis of gender gaps in labour outcomes oecd development centre. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Available at: https://www.oecd.org/dev/development-gender/Unpaid_care_work.pdf (accessed 3 August 2019).

72.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2015) Starting strong IV: Monitoring quality in early childhood education and care. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

73.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2017a) Starting strong V: Transitions from early childhood education and care to primary education. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

74.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2017b) Faces of joblessness in Ireland main results and policy inventory. Available at: https://www.oecd.org/els/soc/Faces-of-Joblessness-in-Ireland-CPP2017.pdf (accessed 3 August 2019).

75.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2019) Family database: SF2.1: fertility rates. Available at: https://www.oecd.org/els/family/SF_2_1_Fertility_rates.pdf (accessed 4 August 2019).

76.

Paananen

Kumpulainen

Lipponen

(2015) Quality drift within a narrative of investment in early childhood education. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 23(5): 690–705.

77.

Peers

(2015) What is ‘human’ in human capital theory? Marking a transition from industrial to post-industrial education. Open Review of Educational Research 2(1): 55–77.

78.

Penn

(2011) Quality in Early Childhood Services: An International Perspective. Berkshire: Open University Press.

79.

Piaget

(1932/1997) The Moral Judgment of the Child. USA: Routledge & Kegan Paul limited.

80.

Skeggs

(2002) Formations of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable. London: Sage.

81.

Skeggs

(2004) Class, Self, Culture. London: Routledge.

82.

Somerville

Williams

(2015) Sustainability education in early childhood: An updated review of research in the field. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood 16(2): 102–117.

83.

St Pierre

(2002) ‘ Science’ rejects postmodernism. Educational Researcher 31(8): 25–27.

84.

Stuart

(2013) A trinity of saviours-parent, teacher and child: Human Capital Theory and early childhood education in New Zealand. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood 38(4): 51–57.

85.

Taggart

(2011) Don’t we care? The ethics and emotional labour of early years professionalism. Early Years 31(1): 85–95.

86.

Taggart

(2014) Compassionate pedagogy: The ethics of care in early childhood professionalism. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 24(2):173–185

87.

Tronto

(1993) Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. London: Routledge.

88.

Tröhler

Meyer

Labaree

Hutt

(2014) Accountability: Antecedents, power, and processes. Teachers College Record 116(9):1–12.

89.

Tusla (2018) Quality and regulatory framework: Full day care service and part-time day care service. Dublin: Early Years Inspectorate, Tusla.

90.

UN (2013) Unpaid care work and women’s human rights. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2437791 (accessed 29 April 2020).

91.

Urban

(2010) Rethinking professionalism in early childhood: Untested feasibilities and critical ecologies. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood 11(1): 1–7.

92.

Urban

(2014) Starting wrong? A critical perspective on the latest permutationof the debate on the quality of early childhood provision. In: Matthes M, Pulkkinen L, Pinto LM and Clouder C (eds) Improving the Quality of Childhood in Europe. Belgium: Alliance for Childhood European Network Group, 82–97.

93.

Urban

(2018) Editorial. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 26(3): 311–315.

94.

Urban

Swadener

(2016) Democratic accountability and contextualised systemic evaluation. A comment on the OECD initiative to launch an international early learning study (IELS). International Critical Childhood Policy Studies 5(1): 6–18.

95.

Van Laere (2017) Conceptualisations of care and education in early childhood education and care. PhD Thesis, University of Ghent, Belgium.

96.

Van Laere

Peeters

Vandenbroeck

(2012) The education and care divide: The role of the early childhood workforce in 15 European countries. European Journal of Education 47(4): 527–541.

97.

Van Laere

Vandenbroeck

Roets

Peeters

(2014) Challenging the feminisation of the workforce: Rethinking the mind–body dualism in early childhood education and care. Gender and Education 26(3): 232–245.

98.

Wasmuth

Nitecki

(2017) Global early childhood policies: The impact of the global education reform movement and possibilities for reconceptualization. Global Education Review 4(2): 1–17.

99.

Woodhead

(1996) In Search of the Rainbow: Pathways to Quality on Large-Scale Programmes for Young Disadvantaged Children. The Hague: Bernard van Leer Foundation.

100.

Zhao

(2018) What Works May Hurt: Side Effects in Education. New York: Teachers College Press.

Early childhood education and CARE: Won’t somebody think of the children?

Abstract

Keywords

Children and care: Who cares?

Quality childcare and ECEC policy

[Un]intended consequences of quality childcare: Losing sight of the child (3–5 years)

[Un]intended consequences of quality childcare II: No sight of the child (under 3 years)

Quantifying childcare and ECEC policy

[Un]intended consequences of quantifying childcare: The child lost in the transaction

Equality (gender) and ECE policy

[Un]intended consequences of equality (gender) – Where is the child?

Concluding thoughts

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

Funding

ORCID iD

References