Infantologies is a collective writing project designed to express and summarise important ideas, approaches and forms of advocacy in a short and condensed method, in order to present a network of diverse themes, arguments and evidence concerning infants. This is a collective writing project invited fifteen scholars to participate by writing 500 words with maximum of 5 references in a short period of time (normally a couple of weeks). It is a kind of clearing house for dominant statements about the importance of the world of infants, their evolving minds, and physical and social bodies, and the crucial impact of parental, family, cultural, social and physical environments. This writing project follows the methodology of collective writing and builds on recent EPAT collective writing projects. Jayne White curated the section 'Infant Theories for Contemporary Times' and Marek Tesar curated 'Pedagogical Frameworks'. Other collective writing projects that resonate with infantologies will follow, including Infastasies and Infanticides.
This paper analyses the International Early Learning and Child Well-Being Study, undertaken by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in order to draw attention to the neoliberal, neoconservative, and globalising discourses which underpin the study and generate an image of what is ‘best’ in early childhood education. The theories of Michel Foucault frame the analysis, illuminating the International Early Learning and Child Well-Being Study as a technology of governance which elicits new relationships of power between teachers, children, families, governments and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and offering ways of conceiving power/knowledge relationships as productive and therefore hopeful for those who seek to resist dominant paradigms.
There is much contention surrounding the term 'gifted' within Aotearoa New Zealand and international literature. Five teachers who were identified as exemplary teachers of gifted infants and toddlers by surveyed gifted and early childhood communities participated in this study. Whilst the majority of the community members used the term 'gifted' comfortably, the minority of teachers within the study were not confident to do so. Their reluctance to use the term gifted is examined through the power/knowledge dynamic drawing from the theory of Michel Foucault. This study found that giftedness was normalised or abnormalised according to the perspectives of the teachers, promoting particular ways of viewing the child. There was found to be a significant disconnect between the teachers' and communities' usage of the term 'gifted' which holds implications for their 'exemplary' designation.
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