The policy-research-practice triangle in New Zealand early childhood education: Complexities, impossibilities and silences

Kamenarac, Olivera; Gould, Kiri; Tadi, Parisa

doi:10.1080/09575146.2023.2257402

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 31 publications

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“…This article draws on interview excerpts from a research project (completed in 2019) on the constructions of teacher identities in response to shifting discourses in New Zealand ECE policies over the last three decades (Kamenarac, 2019). The primary study explored tensions in teacher work and identity created through discourses of competition and entrepreneurship that favour for-profit interests over the wellbeing of children, families, and the community, and overpowered collectivism, collegiality and partnership in which the sector was traditionally rooted.…”

Section: Research Projectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconfiguring teacher agency within market-driven early childhood spaces

Kamenarac

2022

Policy Futures in Education

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Neoliberal reforms have transformed the early childhood education (ECE) landscape worldwide. The purpose of ECE, what counts as early education and care, and in ECE has been dangerously narrowed to the production of human capital and rationalised by the myth that investing in young children (human capital) will guarantee a better economic future. In this manner, individuals’ efforts and talents achieved through ‘high-quality ECE’ become critical determinators of their own and a country’s success. At the same time, individuals' characteristics and pre-determined circumstances (e.g. race, gender, socioeconomic background), including underlying causes of inequality in society, become a fault of those not exercising the right to ‘freely choose’ from opportunities available on the market. Consistent with a body of literature documenting the damaging impacts of neoliberalism on early childhood education (ECE), this article explores how teacher agency has been reconfigured under a neoliberal framing of ECE in New Zealand. Drawing on a qualitative study with teachers from private-for-profit ECE centres, the article argues that marketisation and privatisation have broken the spirit of collective agency and sense of belonging in the sector, and construed some teachers as business agents contributing, knowingly or unknowingly, to the individual interests of business owners and investors rather than ECE as a public good.

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Section: Research Projectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconfiguring teacher agency within market-driven early childhood spaces

Kamenarac

2022

Policy Futures in Education

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

The policy-research-practice triangle in New Zealand early childhood education: Complexities, impossibilities and silences

Cited by 1 publication

References 31 publications

Reconfiguring teacher agency within market-driven early childhood spaces

Reconfiguring teacher agency within market-driven early childhood spaces

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