Constructions of Early Childhood Education and Care Provision: Negotiating Discourses

Abstract

Drives to increase the number of early childhood education and care places in England have relied on a mixed economy of providers. Yet this is not a free market as policy makers have sought to create a discursive truth of an entrepreneurial provider in order to secure their initial pump priming investment. However, there remain sustainability issues within the sector, and whilst it has been suggested that it is the hyper-feminisation of the workforce that has positioned early childhood education and care as outside of the entrepreneurial discourse, here it is argued that it is the romanticisation of childhood that really creates the tension with the entrepreneurial discourse due to a rejection of a commodity view of children, childhood and early childhood education and care services. There is a call for a construction of early childhood education and care services from within the sector as opposed to one from top down policy directives, but a construction that does not obscure the voice of the child.