Economistic Subjects: Questioning Early Childhood Pedagogies of Learning, Participation, and Voice

Abstract

At both national and global levels, instrumental, human capital logics are seen to dominate contemporary rationales for the investment in, and expansion of, early childhood education (ECE) (Farquhar & Fitzsimons, 2013; Stuart, 2013). In scholarly commentary, primarily economic rationales for investment in ECE are often related with standardized conceptions of curriculum. Standardization is typically seen to derive from psychological understandings of universal developmental stages (Dahlberg, Moss, & Pence, 2007) or from “schoolified” emphases on discrete knowledge and skills (Lee, Carr, Soutar, & Mitchell, 2013). A common critical response to these developments is to advocate for early childhood pedagogies that foreground diverse forms of learning, children’s participation, and voice. Such approaches are often framed as offering an unambiguous and positive alternative to dominant instrumental logics. Moreover, a pedagogical focus on the child as a competent, and what is often described as “agentic,” learner is advanced by advocates as a move toward a more democratic form of ECE (Mitchell & Carr, 2014).