Session Information
ERG SES G 09, Education and Quality
Paper Session
Contribution
Early childhood education and care (ECEC) services are viewed as fields of variable and intensive government regulation (Osgood, 2004 in Fenech and Sumsion, 2007). Governments through rules, rewards and sanctions seek to foster and guarantee quality standards. Consequently, there has been an increase of regulation regarding ECEC services in countries both within and without Europe (Kinos, 2008; Oberheumer, 2005 in Vincent and Braun, 2011).However, the expressed concerns regard tendencies towards ‘a narrowing and normalizing of what constitutes quality to a prescribed technical list of outcomes and practices’; ‘a constraining of teachers’ autonomy in their professional decision-making’; and ‘a perception by teachers that administrative requirements are time consuming, unnecessary and of limited benefit to children or staff’ (Fenech and Sumsion, 2007: 264).
Since standardization has become prominent, the OECD has inevitably been established as a global ‘bench-maker’ of standards between nation-states and their education institutions (Rinne & Ozga, 2013: 98). Apparently, comparison becomes a principal procedure structuring educational realities as much as explaining them and through categorization and classification proposes model practices (Novoa, 2010). Knowledge based regulation tools (KBRTs) seek to decontextualize policy making by displaying objective data as ‘knowledge for policy’ that simultaneously constructs a definition of a problem and a discussion of its solution (Rinne and Ozga, 2013: 111).
A regulatory instrument may be a mechanism, or process defining and structuring the work of information gathering, planning or evaluation in a certain sphere of public action. Such instruments act as an impetus for education actors towards 'consciousness' and towards 'doing something they otherwise might not do (or not on this form)' (Kiss and Fejes, 2011: 69). By diffusing a specific type of knowledge - quality assurance based on standards - and introducing minutely specified procedures for action, they seek to form 'behavior, consciousness, accountability and education quality management issues' in different nation-states (Ibid).
The urge for efficiency is responsible for the dominance of ideas regarding a shift from bureaucratic to market mechanisms. However, by approaching notions such as education or welfare from an efficiency angle, their civic role declines to a financial calculus (Meyer and Benavot, 2013). OECD’s enhanced role in education governance provides a policy pattern for the OECD to expand its regulation tools to different domains (PIAAC and AHELO). The OECD (2012: 10) suggests that ‘skills have become the global currency of 21st century economies’. Such conception of skills, draws concepts of human capital and knowledge-based economies into an ‘overarching policy narrative’ that presents education as a ‘primary site of policy intervention to improve both the well-being of individuals and the economic strength of nations’ (Sellar and Lingard, 2013: 191).
My doctoral research, on which the present paper draws, is oriented towards the global/ European debates surrounding policies related to ECEC and practices in Greece. The aim is to research the role of International Organizations - OECD and EU - in the simultaneous 'economization' of education policy and the 'educationalization' of economic policy (Sellar and Lingard, 2013: 200). Hence, the utilization but also the consequences of this new political regime for education being ushered in globally, pose as a key issue of this research. Basic research questions are: who defines quality in ECEC? Through what processes? In which contexts? With what consequences for children and their families participating in such institutions and with what impact on the identities of the professionals in this field?
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Fenech, M. & Sumsion, J. (2007) 'Promoting high quality early childhood education and care services: beyond risk management, performative constructions of regulation' Journal of Early Childhood Research, 5: 263-283. Jorgensen, M. and Phillips, L. (2002) Discourse Analysis, as Theory and Method. Sage, London. Kinos, J. (2008) 'Professionalism – A breeding ground for struggle. The example of the Finnish day care centre'. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 16, no. 2: 224–41. Kiss, A. & Fejes, I. (2011) 'Knowledge and Regulation through Quality Assurance. An Analysis'. Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Social Analysis, 1: 66- 82. Meyer, H. & Benavot, A. (2013) 'Pisa and the Globalization of Education Governance: some Puzzles and Problems' in H. Meyer, & A. Benavot, (2013) Pisa, Power and Policy: The Emergence of Global Educational Governance. Oxford UK. Oxford Studies in Comparative Education. Novoa, A. (2010) 'Governing without Governing: The formation of a European Educational Space' in M. W. Apple, S. Ball. and L. Gandin, The Routledge International Handbook of the Sociology of Education. London, Routledge. Oberheumer, P. (2005) 'Conceptualizing the early years pedagogue'. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 13, no. 1: 5–16. OECD, (2012) Starting Strong III: A Quality Toolbox for Early Childhood Education and Care. Paris, OECD Publishing. Osgood, J. (2004) ‘Time to get down to business?’ Journal of Early Childhood Research 2(1): 5–24. Rinne & Ozga, (2013) 'The OECD and the Global Re-Regulation of Teachers' Work: Knowledge-Based Regulation Tools and Teachers in Finland and England' in T. Sedon, & J. Levin, (Ed.) Educators, Professionalism and Politics: Global Transitions, National Spaces and Professional Projects. London, Routledge. Sellar, S & Lingard, B. (2013) 'PISA and the Expanding Role of the OECD in Global Educational Governance' in H. Meyer, & A. Benavot, (2013) Pisa, Power and Policy: The Emergence of Global Educational Governance. Oxford Studies in Comparative Education.
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