The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has a key role in driving educational discourse and global educational governance. Its comparative 'Programme of International School Assessment' (PISA) has explicitly linked the knowledge and skills of young people with the economic potential of countries. Through the International Early Learning and Child Well-Being Study (IELS), the OECD plans to extend its reach to Early Childhood Education (ECE) by developing metrics to measure 'quality' in ECE. This focus gives weight to discourses centred around ideas of 'what works'. The rhetoric derives from the principles that standards of learning and well-being can be improved by emulating notions of 'best practice' identified through comparative data. This article uses the case of Portugal to illustrate the significant disconnect between the aims and pedagogies of ECE and the increasingly influential de-contextualised discourses concerning ranking, performance and outcomes, as espoused by the OECD IELS project. Using evidence from three diverse Portuguese ECE settings, we illustrate how conceptual understandings of democracy in each school closely reflected the individual school philosophies. We discuss how the dampening of localised realities, for example through standardisation and de-contextualisation, could lead to a democratic deficit enabled by discourses which displace the purpose, complexity and subjectivity of ECE policy and practice.

Education systems are often expected to play a key role in developing, maintaining and promoting democratic values and behaviours. This is particularly apparent in Portugal where, after nearly half a century of dictatorship ending in 1974, democracy emerged as a central national aspiration, especially within Early Childhood Education (ECE). However, the ambiguity of the term 'democracy' has allowed policy makers, academics and educators alike to promote diverse understandings of its meaning. This article delves into the ambiguities of democracy, revealing its flexible and context-dependent nature through the diverse representations of democracy encountered in three early years settings in Portugal: a public (state) kindergarten, a not-for-profit kindergarten and a private kindergarten. Using interviews, documentary analysis and observations we illustrate the diverse ways in which democracy was represented in each setting. We classify these representations of democracy as structural, individual and collective. We argue that these reflect the different ideologies of the three types of schools that draw upon particular theoretical understandings and socio-political developments in Portugal's educational history.

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In this article, we consider the current state of comparative studies in Early Childhood Education (ECE) and set out proposals for future directions, in particular contesting the increasing dominance of a 'science of solutions' and proposing the benefits and implications of pursuing a 'science of difference' (Nóvoa 2018). By adopting a 'critical' perspective and working with Nóvoa's concepts, we draw on the papers included in this special issue, to debate issues of purpose, paradigm, position, and power, alongside their significance for the comparative study of ECE. We argue that respecting and valuing diversity discourages solutionist technocratic comparative education approaches. The article maps directions from the past to the present and connects them with the future of comparative education in ECE as a diversity engaged, ethical and democratic 'science'.

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