Joanne Ailwood

Governing Early Childhood Education through Play

Play serves as a significant nodal point in the discursive relations of early childhood education. The aim of this article is to ask how play has come to appear so necessary to early childhood educational settings and how this perceived necessity governs the behaviour of both adults and young children. To do this the author make use of concepts provided through Foucaults notion of governmentality, or the conduct of conduct. The article begins with a thematic overview of some of the dominant discourses of play. It then considers some critiques of play discourses in early childhood education. Following this, it considers how play has been produced as a technology of governmentality in early childhood educational settings.

Mothers, teachers, maternalism and early childhood education and care: some historical connections

Many current debates in Australia regarding the policy, politics and practicalities of childcare provision are embedded in dominant discourses of maternalism. This article places these debates within some historical contexts, emphasising the long history of these debates and the enduring centrality of maternalism — where the most revered of roles and relationships a woman can have is that of mother and one-on-one carer for her young child. In this article, the author discusses some of the historical points at which maternalism came to dominate early childhood education and care. The author considers Froebel, and the women who spread his word, nation building and the rise of psychology, making links between these and current debates in Australia.

Genealogies of governmentality: Producing and managing young children and their education

Genealogies, or histories of the present, create critical spaces to remind us of the nonnecessity of that which we consider necessary to our lives (Burchell 1993). Further, genealogies of governmentality attempt to create this space with a focus on how conduct is conducted. In this paper I suggest that genealogies of governmentality are one way to create critical analyses of the education of young children. Sociologies of childhood consider childhood to be a relational concept, functioning in relation to adulthood. I argue that genealogies are one way to illuminate these relationships, in particular pointing towards the ways in which the education of young children is deeply embedded in a range of complex and contradictory’ adult’ discourses and knowledges, including those of motherhood, politics, worker, citizen and the economy. To illustrate this I provide an analysis of the provision of preschool education in Queensland’s government schools.

Practices for teaching moral values in the early years: a call for a pedagogy of participation:

Schools have long been seen as institutions for preparing children for life, both academically and as moral agents in society. In order to become capable, moral citizens, children need to be provided with opportunities to learn moral values. However, little is known about how teachers enact social and moral values programs in the classroom. The aim of this article is to investigate the practices that Australian early years teachers describe as important for teaching moral values. To investigate early years teachers’ understandings of moral pedagogy, 379 Australian teachers with experience teaching children in the early years were invited to participate in an online survey. This article focuses on responses provided to an open-ended question relating to teaching practices for moral values. The responses were analysed using an interpretive methodology. The results indicate that the most prominent approaches to teaching moral values described by this group of Australian early years teachers were engaging children in moral activities. This was closely followed by teaching practices for transmitting moral values. Engaging children in building meaning and participatory learning for moral values were least often described.

Epistemic beliefs and beliefs about teaching practices for moral learning in the early years of school: relationships and complexities

While investment in young children is recognised as important for the development of moral values for a cohesive society, little is known about early years teaching practices that promote learning of moral values. This paper reports on observations and interviews with 11 Australian teachers, focusing on their epistemic beliefs and beliefs about teaching practices for moral education with children aged 5–8 years. The analysis revealed three main patterns of thinking about moral education: following others, reflecting on points of view, and informing reflection for action. These patterns suggest a relationship between epistemic beliefs and beliefs about teaching practices for moral learning which have implications for teacher professional development concerning experiences in moral education.