What Is Early Childhood Education and Care For? How ECEC for Children up to the Age of Three Is (Not) Discussed in the Czech Republic

Abstract

Institutional day care for children up to the age of three (early childhood education and care -ECEC) is a topic that has repeatedly provoked emotional debates in the Czech Republic (CR). However, reflection on the conceptual-content aspect of ECEC is largely missing. The article therefore focuses on this neglected area. Following Foucault's concept of governmentality, the article analyses ECEC debates from the perspective of ECEC regimes of practices as re/producing thematically specific and historically constituted assemblages of how ECEC is or ought to be done in the CR. In doing so, it answers the following questions: What ECEC regimes of practices figure in Czech ECEC debates from the 1990s to the present? What transformations and continuities can be identified from an analysis of regimes of practices? What are their implications for the ECEC system in the CR? The analysis identifies four different ECEC regimes of practices: as a socialist evil that needs to be overcome; as a service that is not a concern of the state; as a private tool for reconciling work and private life; and as a publicly funded service for reconciling work and private life. A key element of continuity in these regimes of practices is the neglect of the conceptual-content aspect of ECEC and the related absence of a pedagogical discourse that would legitimise ECEC services in terms of their benefits for children. Thus, the way how ECEC for children up to the age of three is conceptualized as a public service in the CR remains limited to the economic purposes of ECEC services.