"School Readiness": The Struggle for Complexity

Abstract

This article highlights the challenge of engaging critically with dominant discourses of "readiness" in early childhood education. Drawing on the current context of early childhood education in England, this paper argues that dominant discourses of "readiness" are reliant on an underlying logic of mechanistic causality that acts to reduce complexity and marginalize difference and diversity. Calling for a radical reconceptualization of "readiness," experiences from practice are weaved throughout this critical discussion, highlighting the impact of dominant discourses of "readiness" in situated practice and the challenges that can be faced by engaging critically with this discourse.