A Critical Analysis of the <i>National Quality Framework:</i> Mobilising for a Vision for Children Beyond Minimum Standards

Fenech, Marianne; Giugni, Miriam; Bown, Kathryn

doi:10.1177/183693911203700402

Cited by 49 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…For the five participants of this study, who represent government bureaucrats and sector advocates, the quality agenda represented a long-awaited acknowledgement of the importance of ECEC (Fenech et al, 2012) . An independent education consultant, Emily, who was active on the board of the advocacy group Early Childhood Australia at the time of the reform, reflects as follows:…”

Section: Producing Policy (Discourse)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Deploying Foucauldian genealogy: Critiquing ‘quality’ reform in early childhood policy in Australia

Hunkin

2016

Power and Education

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The last two decades have seen the emergence of a global education paradigm that has reimagined education through the lens of neo-liberal ideology. Education policy agendas and discourses in current times are globally governed through transnational networks, which have increased the opaqueness of education policymaking. For critical policy researchers, the challenge is to respond with new methodologies that can capture and critique the increasingly diffuse, fractured nature of contemporary policy processes. This article presents one such methodology, where Foucauldian genealogy is used to construct a history of the discourse of 'quality' in early childhood reform policy in Australia. The genealogical approach is combined with 'network ethnography', which uses interviews with policy actors and the construction of policy network and mobility maps to undertake a governmentality analysis of discourse production. The preliminary findings emphasize the global spread of a positivist discourse of quality, and discuss its neo-liberal ideological ties and policy uses in Australian early childhood policy. The tactical use of human capital theory in the Australian Early Years Learning Framework is uncovered, wherein government discourse control resulted in the creation of learning outcomes for children, intended for use as a performativity structure.

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Section: Producing Policy (Discourse)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Deploying Foucauldian genealogy: Critiquing ‘quality’ reform in early childhood policy in Australia

Hunkin

2016

Power and Education

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“…Many professionals and academics have critiqued components of the NQF in a bid to highlight potential or actual limitations, and contribute to policy decision-making concerning future development of the NQF. These professional and academic critiques include: a call for reform of the current funding model (currently subsidies are paid directly to eligible parents/guardians who use NQF-regulated services) to better facilitate meeting the goals of the NQF (Brennan and Adamson, 2014; Tayler, 2011); claims that the standards are not ambitious, falling ‘short of precedents set by ECEC systems overseas’ (Pricewaterhouse Coopers, 2011: 25); the suggestion that the NQF overly relies on cosmetic regulatory reform that bypasses the structural inputs required for high-quality provision (Fenech et al, 2012); and considerations for future iterations of the Early Years Learning Framework, including calls for a more critical focus (e.g. see Millei and Sumsion, 2011; Peers and Fleer, 2014; Sumsion and Barnes, 2010; Sumsion et al, 2009).…”

Section: The Australian Policy Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Generating visionary policy for early childhood education and care: Politicians’ and early childhood sector advocate/activists’ perspectives

Bown

Sumsion

2016

Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood

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This article contributes to the global conversation about generating a ‘vision’ in early childhood education and care policy by reporting on an investigation of influences on politicians’ policy decisions in early childhood education and care in Australia. This article is inspired by the provocations of social and political theorists who question the status quo and how society might be imagined, using policy as a potential method by which to achieve better futures. Guided by this broad agenda, this article reports on an empirical study that sought (1) politician participants’ visions for early childhood education and care policy and (2) early childhood sector representatives’ views on how visionary policy might be generated and, conversely, their perceptions of how visionary policy comes to be impeded. In Australia, an apparent impediment to achieving visionary policy is the perceived fragmentation of the early childhood education and care sector, a policy problem regularly raised in early childhood education and care literature globally and reflected in the findings of the study reported here. Following the work of Sara Ahmed, the authors question the cultural politics of characterizing the early childhood education and care sector as fragmented and how this description might also be inscribed on the surfaces of individual and collective bodies as a totalizing and disciplining strategy. The practice of ‘agonism’ is proposed as a potentially generative conceptual tool for examining the material effects of being characterized as ‘fragmented’, and for reconfiguring political and public spaces.

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“…The NQF was similarly heralded politically as offering the 'promise of a new era' (Fenech, Giugni & Brown, 2012, p. 5). To the Australian ECEC sector this attention to young children in policy and discourse offers the promise of hope, transformation and reinvigoration (Cheeseman & Torr, 2009;Fenech et al, 2012;Sumsion et al, 2009). In fact, much of the celebration around the reforms emerges from a field that has often bemoaned its invisibility and consequently views the attention as belated recognition.…”

Section: Narratives Of Hopementioning

confidence: 99%

Narratives of Childhood in Regional Western Australian Towns: A Trajectory of Hope and Collective Wisdom for Landmark Reforms

Giamminuti

Tye

Buckley

et al. 2015

Australasian Journal of Early Childhood

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The major policy reforms responding to these needs and concerns include the development of a National Quality Framework (NQF) (ACECQA, 2011a), which comprises the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) (DEEWR, 2009) and the National Quality Standard (NQS) (ACECQA, 2011b), a national rating system. These reforms are 'designed to improve the quality, access and equity of early childhood services' in Australia (Cheeseman & Torr, 2009, pp. 61-62), address the historic 'bifurcation between education and care', and seek to overcome the 'fragmentation and patchwork nature' (Cheeseman & Torr, 2009, p. 68) of service provision. For the first time in its history of early childhood provision, Australia has taken a 'national approach to quality standards, equity of access and a national early years learning framework' (Cheeseman & Torr, 2009, p. 68). With the advent of these reforms, many government agencies reconsidered their engagement with and provision for the early years. One such agency was the Department of Sport and Recreation of Western Australia (DSR); this article reports on the SouthWest Early Childhood Project (SWECP), a pilot study focusing on the ways that communities in the regional southwest of Western Australia (WA) afford opportunities for young

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A Critical Analysis of the National Quality Framework: Mobilising for a Vision for Children Beyond Minimum Standards

Cited by 49 publications

References 10 publications

Deploying Foucauldian genealogy: Critiquing ‘quality’ reform in early childhood policy in Australia

Deploying Foucauldian genealogy: Critiquing ‘quality’ reform in early childhood policy in Australia

Generating visionary policy for early childhood education and care: Politicians’ and early childhood sector advocate/activists’ perspectives

Narratives of Childhood in Regional Western Australian Towns: A Trajectory of Hope and Collective Wisdom for Landmark Reforms

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