Beginning to Dismantle the Binaries that Frame the Neoliberal Kindergarten

Abstract

The binary logic of policymakers’ neoliberal reforms has restructured kindergarten into a learning environment where teachers struggle to nurture children as learners. At the same time, the critiques that challenge these policies are also rooted in this binary logic. This allows policymakers’ neoliberal reforms to remain intact. In this article, I address this issue through analysing findings from a larger research study that examined how a range of education stakeholders (n=88) made sense of the changed kindergarten through binary logic. I then take apart these three binaries that emerged in my analysis process to provide insight into possible pathways for change that education stakeholders at all levels of governance can begin to engage in to dismantle policymakers’ neoliberal education reforms.

Examining Preservice Teachers’ Conceptions of Teaching to Consider the Impact of Policymakers’ Neoliberal Reforms on Their Sensemaking of Their New Profession

“…The haves and have-nots. As these PSTs approached the end of their PTP, they appeared even more aware of how public education has been divided into a system serving the "haves and have nots" (Brown, 2021). This was particularly clear when the PSTs described the differences between Title 1 and non-Title 1 schools.…”

Conducting Case Study Research to Address the Continued Crises: A Process of Learning to Employ Decolonial Perspectives to Produce a Flourishing Academic Lifeworld

“…To be clear, not all the students I have the pleasure of working with want to pursue, or, as in my case, feel they have the sociocultural history and/or identity to speak with these important voices. Nevertheless, I propose to them that our goal, as researchers, with any endeavor should be to seek to acknowledge those who created the harm endured by those with whom we are working alongside and to work with our participants to alter the conditions that created such destruction (K. D. Brown, 2021).…”