We’re going on a bear hunt: Reconciling neoliberalism and postcolonialism in Pacific early childhood

Sims, Margaret; Tiko, Lavinia

doi:10.1080/2331186x.2016.1152673

Cited by 16 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Despite this, Stover (2013) identifies the impact of neoliberalism and warns that safety is becoming more important than exploration, accountability is becoming more like surveillance and children, because they are investments, are becoming too precious to be exposed to any level of risk. Similar tensions are evident in other nations of the Pacific as well (Sims & Tausere Tiko 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 49%

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Infant and toddler educare: A challenge to neoliberalism

Sims

Alexander

Nislin

et al. 2018

SAJCE

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We contend that the conventions, practices and philosophies underpinning working with infants and toddlers provide an alternative way of viewing early childhood work, and such a perspective may well help to challenge the ‘wicked problem’ of neoliberalism. It is in this context that we propose that a deeper understanding of the perspectives of those professionals working with our youngest children in a range of different countries may inform a wider resistance to neoliberalism across all of early childhood. We seek, in this article, to share the voices of early childhood professionals reflecting on the manner in which they understand work with infants and toddlers, and how this relates to their understanding of issues related to education and care. We hope this exploration will lead us into further refining our argument that infant and toddler pedagogy has the potential to challenge the hegemony of neoliberalism in early childhood. Our dream is to steer early childhood away from the tyranny of standardisation, accountability and economic rationality into a space where children are valued for being, where individuality and diversity flourish, where learning academics is one (relatively unimportant) element amongst many others and where relationships and participation (and dare we say, happiness) reign supreme.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 49%

“…Data were collected via an online survey as described in Sims and Pedey (2015) and Sims and Tausere Tiko (2016). The focus of the survey was to explore the professionalisation of early childhood.…”

Section: Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infant and toddler educare: A challenge to neoliberalism

Sims

Alexander

Nislin

et al. 2018

SAJCE

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“…The situation in Australia foreshadows directions in which other nations may move, given it is claimed educators in this country are subject to more extreme neoliberalism than anywhere else in the world (Smyth, 2017) and that this is a direction emerging in policy initiatives elsewhere (Moss & Urban, 2017;Sims, Alexander, Pedey, & Tausere-Tiko, 2018;Sims et al, 2018a;Sims & Pedey, 2015;Sims & Tiko, 2016;Sims & Tiko, 2019). In the Australian early childhood sector this is exemplified by a range of policy and legislative initiatives (see Sims, Mulhearn, Grieshaber, & Sumsion, 2015 for an overview) that shape and ultimately define practice.…”

Section: Situating the Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Working as early childhood centre directors and deputies – perspectives from Australia, Finland and Norway

Halttunen¹,

Sims²,

Waniganayake³

et al. 2019

Leadership in Early Education in Times of Change

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This research is based in early childhood centres in Australia, Finland and Norway, considered the leadership work of centre Directors and Deputy Directors. Theoretically, this study is situated within the global landscape of neoliberalism that Sims (2017) describes as forcing the reshaping of early childhood policy in numerous OECD countries. Essentially qualitative in design, this exploratory study uses data gathered via a short background survey questionnaire, content analysis of job description statements, and a follow up interview with each participant. Findings indicate that there are differences within and across the three countries in the way these jobs are structured. It appears that the expectations of each role and how participants engage in leadership are framed by their centre contexts. In Australia, leaders of centres achieving an excellent quality rating tend to focus on relationship work when making leadership decisions. In Finland, Directors and Deputy Directors are expected to collaborate as partners when overseeing the work of 2-3 centres and other services. In Norway, there has been a redistribution of work where Deputy Directors have a co-responsibility in leadership enactment. When taken together, these findings illuminate new insights on how Directors experience leadership when Deputies are part of the leadership team in early childhood settings.

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“…The focus on the education discourse is thus a strategy where early childhood professionals can align their work with that of colleagues in schools in an attempt to gain recognition as a valuable profession, becoming early childhood educators in the process (Sims, Forrest, Semann, and Slattery, 2014;Sims and Pedey, 2015;Sims and Tausere-Tiko, 2016;Waniganayake, 2015a, 2015b). That such an approach involves the kinds of risks discussed above -specifically the risks that come with the neo-liberal agenda, including standardisation, external monitoring and accreditation, and corporatisation (Otterstad andBraathe, 2016, Simpson et al, 2014; Sims, 2017) -is not always recognised, or is perhaps dismissed as the price that it is necessary to pay for gains in professional status.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Rather, early childhood services are positioned as holistic, addressing 'adequate nutrition, health and hygiene, opportunities for learning, and protection from harm and pollution' (UNICEF, n.d.). This holistic approach is reflected in much of the work undertaken in the Global South (some examples are discussed in Ang and Sims, 2016;Sims, 2015) and is captured in the Asia-Pacific Regional Network for Early Childhood's 2020 Vision statement:…”

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confidence: 99%

Early childhood education and early childhood development: Do the differences matter?

Sims

Brettig²

2018

Power and Education

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In many Western nations (an area of the world identified by Connell as the Global North), the early childhood sector has positioned itself within the education discourse. This positioning brings along with it the neo-liberal agenda in relation to education-i.e. that education's key aim is the preparation of employable future employees (children as human capital). Along with this is the increasing imposition of employer-identified skills and knowledges on the curriculum in order to shape children, through education, into the 'right' attitudes, dispositions and knowledges. Thus, early childhood education has become increasingly subject to external accreditation, whereby services are evaluated based on their adherence to predetermined standards. Early childhood educators' work has increasingly required the operation of a panoptic view of children, whose every behaviour is observed, recorded and judged. The authors argue that such standards, in some contexts, act as barriers to effective service delivery and present examples of work from the Global South, demonstrating how an early childhood development focus facilitates a holistic approach to early childhood service delivery. The authors demonstrate how that development focus can be operationalised in the Global North and suggest that, as the sector proceeds towards professionalisation, it needs to consider its direction.

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We’re going on a bear hunt: Reconciling neoliberalism and postcolonialism in Pacific early childhood

Cited by 16 publications

References 27 publications

Infant and toddler educare: A challenge to neoliberalism

Infant and toddler educare: A challenge to neoliberalism

Working as early childhood centre directors and deputies – perspectives from Australia, Finland and Norway

Early childhood education and early childhood development: Do the differences matter?

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