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

Abstract

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.

Agonism in education: a systematic scoping review and discussion of its educational potential

“…observations (Bath & Karlsson, 2016) and stage performance reflections (Nicholson-Sanz, 2014). We categorised 9 studies as primarily empirical, involving interviews (Bown & Sumsion, 2016;Hammersley-Fletcher et al, 2018), discourse analysis (Clarke, 2006), analysis of video observations (Johansson & Emilson, 2016;Tarc & Mishra Tarc) and case studies (n = 4) (Andersson & Olson, 2014;Hasslof et al, 2014;Pinto, 2014;Wood, 2018). One study involved a secondary discourse analysis (speeches by the U.S. Department of Education) (Suspitsyna, 2012) and there was also a UK-based theoretical literature review with a focus on democratic education (Sant, 2019).…”

“…Johansson and Emilson (2016) relate agonism to playfulness, emotions and conflict, and describe an agonistic approach as a tool for student learning of democratic principles; a similar approach is adopted by Bath and Karlsson (2016) who examine examples of young children acting as citizens. From a different perspective, Bown and Sumsion (2016) draw on agonistic principles to explore the fragmentation of early childhood education in Australia, with Moss (2007) discussing a divide between policy and practice that calls for the development of "an agonistic politics that attracts at least some occupying different positions in the field" (p. 236).…”

“…Hayden, 2018); (ii) in initial teacher education as navigating tensions and developing a stronger public identity (e.g. Hansen et al, 2015); (iii) in early years education, as a way of exploring the fragmentation of the field (Bown & Sumsion, 2016) and addressing the gap between theory and practice (Moss, 2007); and finally (iv) in arts education (e.g. Baldacchino, 2013), as well as other educational literature (such as, Ljunggren, 2010), as an element of critical pedagogy and transformative learning.…”

Ad-hoc numbers forming provision and policy: round and round of universal access in an Australian preschool

“…It seems the realisation of universal access in NSW demanded far more free labour, compromise and sacrifice on behalf of everyday ECEC actors that perhaps the field has ever anticipated. It also further entrenched the power lines along the real or imagined fragmentation of the sector (Bown & Sumsion, 2016). It made preschools policy informing and forming through professionals' creative calculations, strategizing and modelling and the constant submissions to government.…”

“…We believe that focusing on the ways in which international initiatives, such as universal access, criss-cross and shape everyday actors' work, is highly useful in understanding, unsettling and debating them. In the spaces produced, new forms of politics might take shape that progresses visions that the Australian, and international, ECEC sector has long been striving for (Bown & Sumsion, 2016;Macfarlaine & Lewis, 2012).…”