No abstract

Crossing the Rubicon -what are we planning for in Early Childhood Education?Strategy is a word that has had an increased currency in recent years. It is a word that is used in organisational studies to set out the primacy of good business decision-making, in foretelling risk and opportunity. It has been used by government in policy documents, where medium and long-term goals are set out, for example the New Zealand government's policy document Strategic Plan for Early Childhood Education -pathways to the future. Michel Foucault's methodology of genealogy is used in this study to trace the origins of the term strategy, its use in organisational studies, and its relevance to education, specifically Early Childhood Education in Aotearoa/ New Zealand. The study by Richard Whipp into the effectiveness of strategic planning is also used to problematise such a term as an oxymoron.The study problematises some naturalised assumption of the image of people, of time, and of analysts' reflexivity. It asks about the use of terms that originated in military lexicon, but are now seen as good business practices. However, traces of the original military intent remain in terms such as manoeuvres, strategy, target, plan and risk. Foucault inverted the phrase that politics is war by any other means, as institutions centralised control, and set up supervision of populations, and collected statistics to plot changed patterns. This paper examines some of the tracery that remains in such use of governmental language, and asks if this is the most appropriate lexicon for education.

THERE IS A CONTEMPORARY trinity, of mother, child and teacher, who together ‘grow’ both the present and future workers of the national economy. Economic truths assert that mothers can best meet their young child's needs by being in the workplace, while entrusting her child to a skilled educator. Human Capital Theory discourse has penetrated the lives of our youngest citizens. Human Capital theorists maintain that state investments in early childhood education will be cost effective; will pay long-term economic dividends.

The newly coined policy of social investment is an economic argument for targeting state investment to the most needy. I use Foucault's notion of biopolitics in a discursive analysis of recent New Zealand policy documents pertaining to a discrete group of 'vulnerable children'. I further argue that the Foucauldian metaphor of state institutions as warlike gives knowledge/ power to investment as efficient government.

An academic, Peter Dinniss, discussed the then emerging issue of professionalism in the early childhood education sector in 1974. “There has been much debate over the term ['professional'] together with discussion as to whether teaching is a profession” (1974: 11). On the cusp of the 21st century, the Education Council (now renamed Teaching Council) of New Zealand consulted with teachers on their register about a professional code. This article follows the emergence of the professionalism discourse. I examine traces of the ‘strategies, tactics and procedures’ in a genealogy of the managerial technicist process of education. My interest lies in emergent ‘responsibilization’ of teachers over the period. I examine the power/knowledge of the ‘profession’ in Aotearoa, New Zealand, as teachers invent and govern themselves. I ask if the Council’s discourse of professionalism through registration of individuals can be re-envisioned through the collective and democratic practices evident in parent-led services.