Abstract
Going to and/or attending (pre)school has become an expected contemporary childhood experience for many children around the world. Discussions and debates concerning the ways in which early childhood education and care should be organized and planned to ensure quality for the hope of a better future are transcending political and sociocultural boundaries.
Since the turn of the 21st century, there are multiple international examples of reform policies in the field of early childhood education and care. In particular, several cases of different national curriculum frameworks have emerged from different sociocultural contexts and have come together to (re)configure a new “truth” concerning what may constitute desirable approaches relating to what teaching and learning ought to be in (pre)schools. To highlight a few, these examples may include the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) in Australia, the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) in the United Kingdom, the Guide to Pre-primary Curriculum in Hong Kong, the Guideline for Kindergarten Education in China, the Nuri Curriculum in Korea, the Aistear in Ireland, and many other early childhood curriculum frameworks from different countries.
However, despite being articulated in different languages from multiple cultural contexts, these cases of national curriculum guidelines and/or frameworks share a similar system of reasoning to prescribe normative ways of being and becoming for all children in that, among contemporary changes and constructions of desirable childhoods, raising standards while promoting learning outcomes to ensure the quality and accountability of early childhood education and care has become a shared concern in global education reforms. Thus, a dominant and normative discourse about appropriate approaches and desirable pedagogical practices in the early years is at work producing a universal grand narrative across cultural, political, and social boundaries to (re)define restricted ways of be(come)ing for all children.
Drawing from critical and poststructural theoretical frameworks, (pre)schools can be conceptualized as sites of power struggles. The authors in this Special Issue aim to unpack the dangers of the dominant discourses to reconceptualize as well as to disrupt the various discourses of control to (re)define desirable ways of be(come)ing in (pre)schools. Reflecting the theme of this special issue, Moss offers the case of early childhood education in England to illustrate the production of both fears and hopes through critical analysis of the dominant discourses at work. Critiquing how children are being governed (as well as self governed) in a contemporary society of control under the influence of a neoliberal logic, Moss articulates a notion of “cautious hope” and asserts the importance of recognizing alternatives as a means to open up the possibilities of different ways of “doing” early childhood education and care. In the race of global competitiveness to the “top” of international league tables such as the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), the fear of falling behind has been manufactured. Taking the kindergarten settings in the United States for 5-year-old children for examples, Heimer and Klefstad critique how children and teachers in kindergartens are being regulated as well as self-regulated through the standards and assessments within the guidelines of the integrated curriculum under the umbrella of developmentally appropriate practices in the United States. The production of both fears and hopes about learning outcomes is certainly at play in the global community.
In his article (“Be careful!”), Kenneally discusses how common utterances on playgrounds in early childhood settings embody discourses of safety, socialization and purposeful play that come together to constitute discourses of control. Coming from a similar analytical framework, Watson, Millei, and Petersen challenge the working of power and control in the early childhood settings through the use and implementation of non-human actors such as the wrist band, the lock, and the scooter board, through which the dominant construction of normality is perpetuated. They elaborate on how early childhood classrooms are one of the most controlled social environments for children by analyzing how the special non-human actors come to regulate children as well as “help” them become self-regulated. In the process of normalization within the early childhood settings, practices of otherness and notions of inclusion are always happening through the formulation of inclusive policies. In Arndt, Gibbons, and Fitzsimons’ article, they confront New Zealand government “solutions” in which all children are being “normalized” to fit in one grand narrative through the articulation of national reform policies and present a case of imported behavior management programs in early childhood settings. Their discussion and analysis problematizes the production of othering and what it is to be “normal.”
Drawing on the framework of the “new” sociology of childhood, Barnikis investigates the questions of what are children’s perceptions about their past experiences in a kindergarten program and their current experiences in different Canadian public schools. Through children’s eyes and lived/living experiences, Barnikis’ research highlights the importance and the need for educators and administrations across different sectors from early childhood and primary settings to work together to challenge the dominant construction of young children as needing help under adult-dominated and controlled social institutions such as (pre)schools.
In the age of globalization and neoliberalism, contemporary constructions of children and their childhoods have been reconfigured. Using a cultural study framework, Lim highlights Singapore as a consumer society and discusses children’s peer culture to address the issues of inequality in a preschool. Lim’s article offers opportunities to problematize the complexities of children’s consumer-like behaviors, choices, and desires, as well as the interplay of peer culture and family socioeconomic status in a Singaporean preschool setting. Shifting to the cultural context of Australia, Gibson, McArdle, and Hatcher problematize how the images and constructions of children and their childhoods have changed under the effects and influences of neoliberal rationality through the formulation and implementation of reform policies. Highlighting a key policy document in contemporary early childhood policy for critical analysis, Gibson et al. caution us on the limitations of the neoliberal construction of children as productive citizens and economic units of a nation’s future as a narrowed definition of children and their childhoods. In a similar frame of reference about Australian early childhood education and care, Sims and Waniganayake’s article challenges the influences of neoliberalism as a hegemonic discourse that (re)constructs and (re)shapes the notion of quality early childhood education and care in Australia. While recognizing the importance of quality care and education in the early years for all Australian children, this article offers alternative perspectives to discuss how children are being regulated and normalized in the name of ensuring quality programs.
Discourses of regulation and control can appear in early childhood education and care from multiple angles. As illustrated through the different articles in this Special Issue, contemporary childhoods across different political and cultural boundaries cannot escape from discourses of control. Seeking to disrupt contemporary cultural imaginations about children and their childhood, Osgood and Giugni (also known as Red Ruby Scarlet) deploy posthumanist theorizing to extend the limited and prescribed parameters and open up different ways of knowing by rethinking issues of regulation and governance of gender in early childhood.
Among the multiple foci of discussions and critiques relating to the main theme of Regulating Childhoods, the articles in this Special Issue all share similar concerns of the dangers of normalization and regulation in the different societies of control across different cultural and geopolitical spaces. We hope the collection of articles about the different international cases in this Special Issue can offer alternative perspectives and open up new possibilities for reconsidering and problematizing contemporary understandings of children and their childhoods.