No abstract

Working with an understanding of assemblage as the ad hoc groupings of vibrant materials and elements, this article argues that conceptualizing place as an assemblage opens possibilities for bridging the gap between subjects and objects that continue to structure pedagogy. Considering 'place' as an assemblage of humans and their multiple 'others' puts emphasis on the productive nature of forces and forms as vibrant matter. While much of the literature on 'place-based pedagogy' argues for a commitment to place-based local environments as a counterpoint to globalization, 'place-as-assemblage' circumvents such politics of resistance. Instead of critique and opposition, the emphasis lies on finding ways for critical engagement and new perspectives through an understanding of the forces and forms that make places, and shape pedagogies. The article draws on New Zealand-based research to reconsider the often taken-for-granted relationship between place and pedagogy.

Over the past decade, professionalism has become a keyword in early childhood education in New Zealand. The emphasis on 'professionalism' in education often refers to increased accountability and outcome-focused approaches to teaching. The push to managerial performativity as a new hallmark of professionalism has led to arguments that warn of a 'deprofessionalisation' of teachers as an effect of neo-liberal education reform. This article argues that discourses of professionalism in neo-liberal times and places are multifaceted and more complex than the 'deprofessionalism' argument indicates. Instead of reinscribing neo-liberalism as a monolithic entity which produces one particular type of professionalism only, the article proposes to look closely at what kind of professionalism is enacted in particular places. The article focuses on two 'professionalisms' -one in a corporate context, the other one in a small, private centre -to highlight the coexistence of different articulations and enactments of 'neo-liberal professionalism' in early childhood education.

The first New Zealand early childhood curriculum framework, Te Whāriki, was published in 1996. Te Whāriki presents quality in early childhood education as productive of a particular type of child. In this article the author argues that Te Whāriki is not about 'best practice' but about producing the ideal child. This child emerged at a time when New Zealand was deeply entangled in neo-liberal visions of globalisation. The type of child embedded in New Zealand's early childhood curriculum has the potential to affirm neo-liberal visions of the future global subject.