Frances Press

Dark Matter: The "Gravitational Pull" of Maternalist Discourses on Politicians' Decision Making for Early Childhood Policy in Australia.

The article reports on a study investigating influences on Australian politicians’ decision making for early childhood education and care (ECEC) policy. The astronomical concept of dark matter is utilised as a metaphor for considering normalising, and therefore frequently difficult to detect and disrupt, influences implicated in politicians’ decision making for ECEC policy. The concept of dark matter connects with and extends Foucauldian conceptualisations of knowledge, power and discourse. The paper argues that maternalist discourses continue to shape the policy landscape for ECEC, though these are largely unacknowledged.

Influences on Politicians' Decision Making for Early Childhood Education and Care Policy: what do we know? What don't we know?

Politicians play a key role in determining policy content and outcomes for early childhood education and care (ECEC). As a result, the quality of formal ECEC provisions for children rests considerably on the policy decisions of politicians. Despite direct and indirect effects of politicians policy decisions for the ECEC field, few studies explore influences on politicians policy decisions, and fewer still pertain to ECEC. In light of the significant gap in the research investigating how and why politicians make the decisions that they do, the authors present a case for a research agenda to investigate politicians policy decision-making processes in ECEC. A review of the literature pertaining to influences on political decision making reveals some possible influences on politicians decision making generally, but not for ECEC policy specifically. Using the policy sphere of ECEC to illustrate the complexities of social policy development and implementation in a democratic political system, the authors put forward a conceptualisation of policy that generates a wide range of questions to inform the development of a research agenda. They conclude with a discussion of the possible implications that a research agenda investigating politicians policy decisions in ECEC might have for the early childhood field.

Early Childhood Activism, Minor Politics and Resuscitating Vision: a tentative foray into the use of 'intersections' to influence early childhood policy

Many postmodern and post-structural analyses of government policies affecting early childhood education stress the hegemonic nature of neo-liberalism and subsequently primarily focus upon identifying the manifestation of neo-liberal values in such interventions. An unintended and stultifying consequence of such analyses is, at times, to close off the possibilities of envisioning a positive engagement with, and role for, government policy. In addition, the primacy offered to localised knowledges can engender the development of policy responses which are not cognisant of more broadly based social impacts. In response, the authors proffer the use of intersections as key points for the development of analyses and action. This necessitates an active awareness of the ways in which local knowledges and experiences cross, or overlay, information generated from other sites, including disciplinary knowledges and analyses that may be classified as modernist. By utilising points of convergence, as well as understanding points of divergence, intersections can be used to open up spaces for political action that recognise and generate localised responses, whilst at the same time engendering policy that enables more broadly based social justice.

Implicit theories and naïve beliefs: Using the theory of practice architectures to deconstruct the practices of early childhood educators

This article proposes utilising the theory of practice architectures to uncover and make explicit the beliefs and implicit theories of early childhood educators, as well as to examine the conditions out of which they have emerged. The beliefs and implicit theories of early childhood educators influence many early childhood practices and play a significant role in guiding the pedagogical experiences of children. Aimed at identifying elements of practice that constrain and enable praxis, the theory of practice architectures has been effectively applied in tertiary, secondary and primary education, but has had limited use in early childhood education contexts. The article explores its potential for helping educators better articulate their practices and applies the theory to examine a number of discursive, material and social influences that shape (and are shaped by) early childhood practice. Implications for early childhood educators’ praxis are framed in the context of contemporary challenges of early childhood education.

Lived Spaces of Infant-Toddler Education and Care: Implications for Policy?

The research contained within this book reflects the growing commonality, in many parts of the world, of very young children regularly attending some form of formal early childhood education and care setting. Policy significantly shapes the spaces of these environments. This chapter draws upon the book’s rich collection of research, as well as extant literature, to consider implications for policy. Drawing upon Bronfenbrenner (1979), the chapter commences with a brief discussion of policy contexts and situates current research within an understanding of preceding research trends and developments such as the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child. This collection of research challenges limiting views of infant-toddler capacities and dispositions and illuminates the complexity and sophistication of infant-toddler pedagogy and its emotional dimension. Policy can open the space for such dimensions to be recognised: to provide standards and conditions which enable educators to engage responsively and respectfully with young children and create meaningful connections with families and communities. Importantly, policy also has a role in creating opportunities for deep, professional reflection in ways that challenge and/or extend educators’ views of very young children and the nature of the infant-toddler pedagogy.

Uncovering hidden dimensions of Australian early childhood policy history: insights from interviews with policy ‘elites’

ABSTRACT This article considers the value of elite interviews as a frequently overlooked methodology in investigations of policymaking in early childhood education and care (ECEC). We contextualise the discussion within a study that examines constructions of quality in Australian ECEC policymaking between 1972 and 2009. We conclude that, despite their limitations, the use of elite interviews can enhance understandings of the complexity surrounding policymaking processes.

Infants of the knowledge economy: the ambition of the Australian Government’s Early Years Learning Framework

Shifts in global education policy to formalise curricula and make explicit learning outcomes for ever younger children have become popular for a number of countries responding to changes in global market economics. Human capital discourses, broadly aimed at shaping national prosperity, have entered the early childhood education and care policy landscape as somewhat of accepted wisdom. Using the Australian early childhood reform agenda and its accompanying Early Years Learning Framework as an example, this article interrogates two prominent productivity discourses that have permeated the early childhood education space – learning begins at birth and lifelong learning. We consider the relationship of these discourses to global/neoliberal ambitions for curriculum and question their place in the childcare experiences of infants under 12 months. Drawing on postmodern theory, we examine the complexity of nationalistic ideals aimed at creating platforms for socially just goals, against their potential to promote universalistic notions of childhood and infancy. In problematising the image of a cosmopolitan infant of the knowledge economy, we encourage thoughtful resistance to the reductionist tendencies of economic discourses in early childhood education and claim space for a balance of the personal, democratic and economic dimensions within a vision of the ‘best start in life’.

Child-Centred, Family-Centred, Decentred: Positioning Children as Rights-Holders in Early Childhood Program Collaborations

Although the policy context in Australia is conducive to professional collaborations in early years services, understandings of collaboration are highly variable across the domains of research literature, policy and practice. Inconsistent and possibly incompatible approaches to working with children and families, as well as significant philosophical and professional differences, may be disguised by common terminology adopted under the rubric of collaborative practice. A potential blind spot concerns the positioning of the child, whose perspectives, needs and desires are easily subsumed by the intentions of the adults around them, either as professionals or family members. With reference to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and drawing on extant literature and data from two Australian research projects examining integrated and collaborative practices in early childhood programs, this article interrogates the positioning of the child in interprofessional and transprofessional collaborations, and examines the potential of the early childhood educator to sharpen the focus on children.

An Encounter with "Sayings" of Curriculum: Levinas and the Formalisation of Infants' Learning.

Abstract Increased global attention to early childhood education and care in the past two decades has intensified attention on the education of infants and assessment of their learning in education policy. This interest is particularly evident in the focus upon infants in the early childhood curriculum frameworks developed in recent years in many countries. To date, there has been little examination of implications of this policy/curriculum emphasis in relation to its possible implications for how infants are understood. In this article, using Levinas’ notion of ethical encounter, we present a critical reading of curriculum for infants. Drawing on his ideas of the ‘Other’, ‘responsibility’ and ‘unknowability’ we argue that the rapidly growing corpus of knowledge about infants and their inclusion in education policy and curricula texts, has the potential to narrowly define educators’ responsibilities and prescribe pedagogies in ways that may have unintended consequences. Using the Australian National Quality Framework (NQF) and its associated Early Years Learning Framework as examples, this article highlights the tensions inherent in a system that aims to provide equity, consistency and certainty, premised on a particular ‘knowing’ of the infant. We draw on Levinas’ ideas about ‘said’ and ‘saying’ to propose ways of working with policy and curricula texts that recognise that they can offer only partial understandings of the possibilities for infants’ learning.

Doing Social Justice in Early Childhood: The Potential of Leadership.

Early childhood education has long been connected with objectives related to social justice. Australian early childhood education and care (ECEC) has its roots in philanthropic and educational reform movements prevalent at the turn of the twentieth century. More recently, with the introduction of the National Early Childhood Reform Agenda, early childhood education has once more been linked to the achievement of aims associated with redressing inequality and disadvantage. The authors argue that educational leaders have an obligation to promote equity as they articulate the needs of marginalised students who are traditionally disadvantaged while they also work towards challenging the social order that affords this circumstance of inequity to exist. Drawing on extant literature, including data from two previously reported Australian studies in which leadership emerged as having a transformational impact on service delivery, this article examines the potential of early childhood leadership to generate ‘socially just’ educational communities. With reference to critical theory, the authors argue that critically informed, intentional and strategic organisational leadership can play a pivotal role in creating changed circumstances and opportunities for children and families. Such leadership includes positional and distributed elements, articulation of values and beliefs, and collective action that is mindful and informed.