Deploying Foucauldian genealogy: Critiquing ‘quality’ reform in early childhood policy in Australia

Abstract

The last two decades have seen the emergence of a global education paradigm that has reimagined education through the lens of neo-liberal ideology. Education policy agendas and discourses in current times are globally governed through transnational networks, which have increased the opaqueness of education policymaking. For critical policy researchers, the challenge is to respond with new methodologies that can capture and critique the increasingly diffuse, fractured nature of contemporary policy processes. This article presents one such methodology, where Foucauldian genealogy is used to construct a history of the discourse of 'quality' in early childhood reform policy in Australia. The genealogical approach is combined with 'network ethnography', which uses interviews with policy actors and the construction of policy network and mobility maps to undertake a governmentality analysis of discourse production. The preliminary findings emphasize the global spread of a positivist discourse of quality, and discuss its neo-liberal ideological ties and policy uses in Australian early childhood policy. The tactical use of human capital theory in the Australian Early Years Learning Framework is uncovered, wherein government discourse control resulted in the creation of learning outcomes for children, intended for use as a performativity structure.

Parental choice of childcare in England: Choosing in phases and the split market

“…The scope of this study was limited in terms of the scale of participants, and there is an imbalance in terms of social class. However, the study contributes to the international discussion about the dysfunction of neoliberal childcare markets (Hunkin, 2016(Hunkin, , 2018a by suggesting that parental choosing behaviours do not conform to the market logic of competition and choice. In the English mixed-economy childcare market, except for a few very affluent families, parents significantly lack 'real choice' through which they can balance family and work life.…”

“…In order to guarantee the childcare quality provided by various providers, the UK government has constructed an exceptionally tight regulatory framework, including the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework as well as compulsory Ofsted registration and inspection. Authors have questioned the managerialism, performativity (Hunkin, 2016(Hunkin, , 2018a and compatibility (Adamson & Brennan, 2014) of this policy landscape, especially how Ofsted accreditation relies on the assumption that quality is objective, universal and can be specifically measured (Dahlberg et al, 2013). [Correction added on 11 September 2019: reference Dahlberg et al has been corrected in the preceding sentence and references.…”

Play and Learning?

“…In Australia, the development and introduction of Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (eylf) (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations [deewr], 2009) took place as part of broader suite of reforms called the National Quality Framework, that sat within the national workforce productivity and participation agenda (coag 2009). This was a human capital investment agenda for public services that included early childhood sector investment, a welcome change after the long period of policy neglect that followed the marketisation of services in 1991 (Hunkin, 2016). The Commonwealth drew on human capital messages of cost and benefit to re-imagine early childhood services as the first step in a cycle of lifelong learning that is essential for a competitive global economy (Gillard, 2008).…”

“…There is a tension present between the power and importance attributed to play by the curricula frameworks, and the limited ways that play is presented and understood in regard to learning. Both the eylf (CoA, 2009) and Te Whāriki 190 beijing international review of education 2 (2020) 182-196 (original 1996 version) were written in broad consultation with early childhood sector academics, professionals and advocates but Leach-McGill (2018) notes that the early childhood sector will adopt a neoliberal discourse to seize powerfully policy opportunities, progressing early childhood centric values through the language of investment and progress (also see Hunkin, 2016). The cda quotations above raise questions about how effectively lifelong learning and education discourse can interpret and reflect the depth and breadth of play and learning, since learning through play has an "elusive and ambiguous nature" (Sutton- Smith, 2001, p. 3).…”

Resisting Neoliberalism: Professionalisation of Early Childhood Education and Care

“…A second tension between neoliberalism and the professionalisation of early childhood is connected with how children are perceived. Although early childhood is commonly underpinned by a children's rights perspective [39], it has been suggested that this rights agenda has been high-jacked by neoliberalism and turned into a children-ashuman-capital (investment for the future) discourse [14,37,38]. Hence early childhood services are justified on the basis of their potential to ameliorate disadvantage and enhance human capital development [1,40].…”