Troubling Discourses of Poverty in Early Childhood in the UK

Lyndon, Sandra

doi:10.1111/chso.12354

Cited by 6 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…As ECE is being reterritorialised by the new policy to become an apolitical social machine, the neoliberal imaginary re‐articulates the meanings of equity, justice and freedom, neutralising deep‐rooted political and social problems in society while rejecting the notion of redistribution for the common good (Rizvi & Lingard, 2010). Lyndon (2019) shares similar views about the UK situation of poverty among young children, emphasising redistribution and children's rights to tackle the problem. The reification of market relations through policy, as is the case with Hong Kong, essentially accepts inequalities as part of market processes and the normality of adverse experiences among certain social groups (Young, 2011).…”

Section: A Transformed But Reterritorialised Ece In Hong Kongmentioning

confidence: 99%

Kindergarten Education Scheme in Hong Kong: Policy measures, rhizomatic connections and early childhood teacher education

Yuen

2020

Children & Society

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Using Deleuze and Guattari's concept of rhizome, this study examines the key measures of the Kindergarten Education Scheme introduced by the Hong Kong government in 2017 after a large‐scale advocacy movement. It argues that these measures have expanded the power of the neoliberal imaginary through producing an enhanced market apparatus and an apolitical teaching profession. The neoliberal expansion reflects the manifestation of different kinds of rhizomatic connections to reterritorialise the field. This study calls for the rethinking of teacher educators’ ethical responsibility in addressing the complexity of teacher work frequently neglected by policy and the policy/practice divide in teacher education.

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Section: A Transformed But Reterritorialised Ece In Hong Kongmentioning

confidence: 99%

Kindergarten Education Scheme in Hong Kong: Policy measures, rhizomatic connections and early childhood teacher education

Yuen

2020

Children & Society

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“…Research, mostly from America (Milner, 2013;Ullucci & Howard, 2015), but also emerging in England (Lupton, 2016;Lyndon, 2019;Simpson et al, 2017) tells us that this deficit ideology has shaped teachers attitudes towards children living in poverty, resulting in some educators thinking and responding to poverty in schools through misperceptions, stereotypes, prejudices and bias. This raises interesting questions as to what is the nature of the 'present' for teachers working in highpoverty schools in England and whether the Local Matters program has disturbed this present.…”

Section: Discourses Numbers and Teachers' Attitudesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The local matters: Working with teachers to rethink the poverty and achievement gap discourse

Emery

Dawes

Raffo

2022

EPAA

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This paper is concerned with the current achievement gap policy agenda and associated material and discursive power that shape teachers’ work in schools with high child poverty rates. More specifically, it explores how a university/school research collaboration – Local Matters – can disturb such forms of subjectivation by enabling educators to resist such policy agendas/discourses by drawing on locally contextualized knowledge and place-based evidence. Based on fieldwork undertaken over the past three years at over forty schools with eighty-four teachers across five Local Authority regions in Northern England, we provide a critical discourse analysis of a series of semi structured interviews and focus group activities of those who participated in the project. Based on an interdiscursive and linguistic analysis of the data we show how educators wrestle with the tensions between attempting to enact a social justice, collaborative and a democratic pedagogic approach and dealing with policy requirements that focus on the achievement gap problem and associated ‘what works’ discourse solution. Through the enactment of the program we show how educators, in collaboration with activist researchers, can develop forms of principled resistance that shake up and unsettle dominant forms of child poverty practice and discourses in schools.

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“…There is high levels of poverty, there is overcrowding, you now housing is a massive issue for the children here [..] On the home visits that I go to, there are families, huge families, you know, four, five children in one room, and that has a big impact on the children. (Mary) Their child's education or their child's learning might be the last thing that they're worried about, they might have other issues like housing and all the other … mental health […] The issues raised here relating to poverty and overcrowding reflect the wider findings of research on the social impact of austerity policies on children (Lyndon 2019;Ridge 2013). The problems faced by the families who use these nursery schools produce extra work for staff, who have become a 'frontline service', catering for multiple social needs as well as providing education (Authors 2020).…”

Section: The Wider Context Of Austeritymentioning

confidence: 99%

Policy actors in a hostile environment: the views of staff in maintained nursery schools in England

2021

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The nearly 400 maintained nursery schools in England are schools for children aged 2-4 years. They hold a unique position in offering statefunded provision for this age group, outside of a primary school environment, and are disproportionately located in areas of disadvantage [EE. 2020. Briefing Note: The Comprehensive Spending Review and Funding for Maintained Nursery Schools. Accessed 13 October 2020. https://early-education.org.uk/sites/default/files/Briefing% 20note%20-%20CSR%20and%20maintained%20nursery%20schools% 27%20funding.pdf]. While there have been policy-based attempts to reduce the impact of social deprivation on educational outcomes, we argue that education policy has created a hostile environment for nursery schools. This arises from the national strategies on funding, 'free hours' for parents, and staff qualifications, alongside social policy. Based on interview data with staff and leaders in four nursery schools, the paper explores the views of these teachers and discusses them as policy actors within a precarious environment, faced with possible closure. We explore their agency as they navigate this hostile terrain and their ways of maintaining their sense of professional pride and commitment to social justice.

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Troubling Discourses of Poverty in Early Childhood in the UK

Cited by 6 publications

References 15 publications

Kindergarten Education Scheme in Hong Kong: Policy measures, rhizomatic connections and early childhood teacher education

Kindergarten Education Scheme in Hong Kong: Policy measures, rhizomatic connections and early childhood teacher education

The local matters: Working with teachers to rethink the poverty and achievement gap discourse

Policy actors in a hostile environment: the views of staff in maintained nursery schools in England

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