Sexuality education and early childhood educators in Ontario, Canada: A Foucauldian exploration of constraints and possibilities

Open conversations regarding sexuality education and gender and sexual diversity with young children in early childhood education settings are still highly constrained. Educators report lacking professional training and fearing parental and community pushback when explicitly addressing these topics in their professional practices. As such, gender and sexual diversity and conversations of bodily development are left silenced and, when addressed, filtered through heteronormative and cisnormative frameworks. Through a Foucauldian post-structural lens, this article analyses data from open-ended qualitative questions in a previous research study regarding early childhood educators’ perceptions on discussing the development of sexuality in early learning settings in an Ontario, Canada context. Through this Foucauldian post-structural analysis, the authors discuss forms of surveillance and regulation that early childhood educators experience in early learning settings regarding the open discussion of gender and sexuality. The authors explore how both the lack of explicit curricula addressing gender and sexuality in the early years in Ontario and taken-for-granted notions of developmentally appropriate practice, childhood innocence, and the gender binary – employed in discourses of sexuality education in the early years – regulate early childhood educators’ professional practices. The authors provide recommendations which critique the developmentalist logics – specifically, normative development – that are used to silence non-heterosexual and non-cisgender identities in the early years, while articulating the need for explicit curricula for educators in the early years regarding gender and sexuality in young children.

The (in)credible fiscal prize: A critical examination of the discourse of evidence in early childhood intervention

In playing with the concept of ‘credibility’, this article presents a critical examination of the discourse of evidence and the programming of upbringing in early intervention policy and practice. The truth claims of the evidence discourse in policy are explored through a single complex case study of an early intervention city in Northern Ireland. The framework for the study discussed uses Bourdieu's thinking tools of habitus, capital and field alongside Foucauldian discourse analysis to explore the ways in which early intervention policy and practice impact on children, parents and communities. A key question is to consider how evidence is constructed within the discourse and how this can be considered as a Foucauldian regime of truth. Building from the emerging body of critique around scientism and parenting, the study extends this through a sociopolitical lens to the Northern Ireland context. Despite a strong tradition in Northern Ireland of community-based activism and political transition from direct rule to devolution, early intervention policy and programming have tended towards direct read across from Britain and the USA. The study documents that community-based practice struggles within the policy field for recognition, yet ‘home grown’ carries significant social capital within and across communities. The dominant policy discourse of the (in)credible ‘fiscal prize’, transformation through evidence-based interventions contrasts with the backdrop of worsening child poverty in communities. Contrary to the truth claims, this suggests the reproduction rather than transformation of social disadvantage.

Indonesian street children's negotiation of play

Street children are often constructed as fragile individuals who lose their innocent childhood since they have to work and do not have the opportunity to play like most of their peers. Using Bourdieu's concept of field, capital and habitus, this article seeks to go beyond the existing notion of play by exploring how street children in Bandung, Indonesia, understand and negotiate play with working as part of their everyday lives. The authors took an ethnographic approach to collect data from 14 street children and their guardians, mainly through observation and ongoing conversation. The findings suggest that the children are able not only to navigate the meaning of play, but also to negotiate their social position with adults on the street. This article serves as an invitation for educators and policymakers to develop educational programmes that are sensitive to multiple meanings of play, children and childhood.

Relocating the frame of reference for studying play: Reflections from fieldwork in Chinese rural preschools

Western play theories and practices have had a dominant role in creating China's current discursive condition for preschool play. They are also essential to current knowledge production about play. However, this dominance tends to be transferred into rural preschools, which have recently mushroomed and demanded play activities. The authors reflect on their own experience in conducting an ethnographic study of China's rural preschools to propose that the notion of “Asia as method” can help to reconceptualize play theories and practices in China. The authors also envision their study as an effort to relocate the frame of reference of play to transform the existing knowledge structure about play while transforming themselves in studying play in Chinese rural preschools.

Blurring the play–drama boundary: A case study investigating the teaching and learning of a drama-integrated curriculum in a Hong Kong kindergarten

This study aims to conceptualise a drama-integrated curriculum devised from process drama as an approach to play-based pedagogy and curriculum to realise the policy initiative of learning through play. By investigating teachers’ perspectives and practices in relation to the curriculum of a local kindergarten, examples of effective drama-integration strategies and the associated children's learning are identified and organised into four themes – namely, drama teaching and learning through, before, in and after play. The teachers understood that although their curriculum is not based on free play, its not-so-free features may reconcile the play–learning binarism, daring them to navigate the maze of complex relationships between play, drama, teaching and learning in implementing a playful curriculum.

Play in Asian preschools? Mapping a landscape of hindering factors

This article investigates the variety of factors that hinder the implementation of play (as defined by western scholars) in Asian preschools. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of policy borrowing, enactment and glocalisation, we analyse three jurisdictions that illustrate distinctive problematics: India, Mainland China and Hong Kong. The methodology involves a bibliographic review. Each jurisdiction is presented as a narrative portrait, including key sociocultural characteristics, features of early childhood education system, role of play in government policies, and teachers’ beliefs and practices pertaining to play. The findings show that the distinctive factors hindering play relate to societal mindsets in India, a lack of curriculum clarity in China, and structural factors and parental pressures in Hong Kong. Common hurdles include a high societal emphasis on academic learning, lack of information on how play should contribute to achieve curriculum outcomes, and insufficient teacher preparation. The authors show that play is neither adequately defined nor justified in some Asian policy frameworks, and argue that play might not be viable in certain preschools (especially in half-day programmes). An alternative glocal notion is proposed – child-led activities – which would be less conceptually problematic and more culturally appropriate. The study highlights the need for the glocalisation of Asian early childhood education systems.

Reconceptualising the role of the child portfolio in assessment: How it serves for ‘assessment as learning’

Although the concept of assessment as learning has important educational and practical implications, the utilisation and creation of contexts for assessment as learning in early childhood education are contemporary issues that need to be clarified. The overall goal of this work is to reconceptualise the role of the child portfolio as a tool for promoting assessment as learning in early childhood education. This theoretical framework provides some conceptual insights into children's agency in the learning and assessment process through the use of child portfolios. The main issue addressed is the progressive use of the child portfolio, which comprises observations of classroom experiences, documentation of these observations, revisiting learning experiences and a celebration of children's achievements. These aspects are discussed along with arguments that raise the question of how portfolios can act as catalysts for assessment as learning. This article further advocates that the multidimensional processes of creating a child portfolio may be considered a promising context for promoting autonomy, self-regulation, metacognition and reflection in early childhood education.

Managing categories: The role of social technology in kindergarten teachers’ work to promote early intervention and integration

Early intervention and integration are highly valued ideals in kindergartens in Norway. Building on two research projects informed by institutional ethnography, the authors address how kindergarten teachers ‘do’ early intervention and integration in their everyday work. They argue that this work largely revolves around managing categories, whether making categories fit people or making people fit categories. In this work, the kindergarten teachers rely on social technology that is influenced by a ‘psy-discourse’. Despite good intentions, the social technology and the professionals’ use of it ends up constructing the categories they are intended to help or ‘heal’.