Caroline Hatcher

Getting tense about genealogy

The paper responds to the growing interest in genealogical method as a means of inquiry in education research. The three authors bring together their collective understanding of the nature and purpose of genealogy as a method deriving from the work of Michel Foucault. The authors then indicate how such understandings were applied by each of them to a particular scholarly task. In elaborating the uses and the pitfalls of genealogical approaches by this means, the writers makeit clear that thereis no blueprint for genealogical use. Rather, working through genealogical methods demands from the researcher a strong grasp of the epistemological and theoretical tensions involved in asking how our present educational practices function as they do.

Developing professional identities: remaking the academic for corporate times

Abstract This article posits the view that a new curriculum is being applied to professional identity formation as we enter the new millennium. The changing nature of academics’ life and work is used as a case study in how new knowledge is being applied in ways that represent a radical departure from the sort of knowledge traditionally associated with formal institutions of learning. The authors use one academic managers vision of excellence as an instance of the application of this new curriculum. They then broaden the focus to consider how this instance takes its place in a more widespread imperative to reshape work practices through the creation of enterprising cultures and enterprising individuals, within universities and outside them. The analysis concludes by returning to consider the tactics being used to re/form the Australian academic as an ‘excellent’ teacher.

Killing me softly: the ‘making up’ of the educational leader

The paper explores the call to use the emotions more fully in the interests of excellent leadership, through understanding why and how they have become desirable in the performance of educational work. The analysis that is presented seeks neither to endorse nor reject out of hand the new forms of leaderliness that are evoked through the call to be more in touch with the emotions. Rather, it elaborates the ‘making up’ of this demeanour, and how it links to broader shifts in organizational culture. The paper probes this new leaderliness as a historically situated search for distinction, one that is rendered both visible and desirable through multiple forms of knowledge production. The analytic presented raises questions about the ‘fine tuning’ processes of self‐audit as a central aspect of this knowledge production, including the ways in which the desire to be a warm and passionate leader is acquired and promulgated.

Governing child care in neoliberal times: Discursive constructions of children as economic units and early childhood educators as investment brokers

At any given time in the field of early childhood, there are discourses at play, producing images of children, and these ways of seeing children might be competing, colliding and/or complementing each other. It is fairly widely accepted that in many countries there are versions of dominant discourses that shape and are shaped by current practices in the field of early childhood. These include (1) romantic notions of children running free and connecting with nature and (2) the ‘Bart Simpson’ version of the naughty, cute or savage child, untamed and in need of civilising. These are far from being the only two discursive constructions of children present in current policies and practices. If early childhood professionals are to be active in shaping and implementing policies that affect their work and workforce, it is important that they are aware of the forces at play. In this article, we point to another powerful discourse at play in the Australian context of early childhood education, the image of children as economic units: investments in the future. We show how a ‘moment of arising’ in contemporary policy contexts, dominated by neoliberal principles of reform and competition, has charged early childhood educators in Australia with the duties of a ‘broker’, ensuring that young children are worth the investment. In this article, we begin with (1) a key policy document in early childhood education in Australia and examine the discursive affordances which shape the document. Next, (2) we pinpoint the shifts in how the work of child care is perceived by interrogating this key policy document through a methodology of discursive analysis. We then turn attention (3) to the work of this policy document along with other discourses which directly affect images of children and the shaping role these have on the work of educators. We conclude with (4) a consideration of how the work of early childhood professionals has come to be shaped by this economic discourse, and how they are being required to both work within the policy imperatives and likely to resist this new demand of them.