Constructing the School-Ready Child - A Study of ECEC Teachers’ Experiences of Preparing Children for School

Abstract

This article-based thesis offers a study of how the increasing policy emphasis on children’s school readiness shapes Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) teachers’ work. I am particularly concerned with Norwegian and Danish policymakers’ increasing use of standardised language assessment tools and procedures in kindergarten (0–6 years) as a political measure for enhancing the majority-language proficiency of children with minoritylanguage backgrounds. A range of international studies report a global turn towards the “schoolification” of ECEC, wherein the increasing policy emphasis on early intervention strategies is producing an “accountability shove down” of responsibility for children’s future academic outcomes, from formal education to ECEC domains. In four articles, I examine how teachers both challenge and comply with the ruling constructs of school readiness by drawing on various and at times conflicting institutional discourses in their interactions with children, colleagues, parents, municipal authorities, and school representatives. The data material for the studies presented in Articles 1–3 consists of detail-rich transcripts of individual and group interviews with 22 ECEC teachers, describing their work of supporting and assessing the language development of children from minority-language backgrounds. I particularly focus on which texts and actors are involved in the different stages, before, during, and after a language assessment, and how standardised language assessments are used to inform ECEC teachers’ work of preparing children for school transition. By unpacking ECEC teachers’ descriptive accounts of their work, I elucidate how their task of preparing children with minoritylanguage backgrounds is hooked into larger international processes, transgressing the local particularities of the individual kindergarten. In Article 4, I zoom out of the Danish and Norwegian contexts and conduct a systematic configurative research review of the existing empirical studies on ECEC teachers’ perceptions of school readiness across several national and curricular contexts, painting a broader picture of ECEC teachers’ perceptions and reactions to current changes in the field of education. Overall, the thesis demonstrates how teachers’ work of preparing children for school transition takes place in a complex interplay between policy, professionalism, opposing perceptions of school readiness, social class relations, immigration, and parenting ideals. It develops scholarly knowledge of how ECEC teachers “do” policies in practice by unpacking the institutional complex of school readiness and identifying how ruling constructs of school readiness are textually mediated. It demonstrates in what ways these constructs shape ECEC teachers’ everyday work, their perceptions of school readiness, and their relations with other actors. The thesis contributes much-needed insights into the everyday experiences of ECEC teachers employed in kindergartens residing in high-minority and low-income neighbourhoods in Oslo and Copenhagen. Although kindergartens in these areas are recurrently the focus of public concern and intervention, the experiences of ECEC teachers working in them are seldom sought after or considered. The thesis brings attention to the sometimes large distances between the textual representations of school readiness and the local particularities of neighbourhoods and everyday lives inside kindergartens. Moreover, it elucidates how policy changes are reshaping the social mandates of kindergarten as well as ECEC teachers’ work and professional roles, and it reveals how the social reproduction of inequality between majority and minority groups can be naturalised and legitimised through various institutional processes in kindergarten and school transition settings.

I denne avhandlingen utforsker jeg hvordan et økende fokus på å sikre barns «skoleklarhet» innen skolestart påvirker barnehagelæreres arbeid i barnehagen. En rekke internasjonale studier rapporterer om en global vending mot en «skolifisering» av barnehagen forårsaket av et økende politisk fokus på å sikre barns akademiske ferdigheter før skolestart, og da særlig barns språklige og numeriske ferdigheter. I tråd med denne utviklingen rapporterer flere studier at det foregår en «accountability shove down» av skolens læreplaner og ansvar for barns framtidige skoleresultater fra barneskolen inn i barnehagen. Flere er bekymret for at denne utviklingen går på bekostning av sosialpedagogiske verdier tradisjonelt forbundet med barnehagen, som blant annet viktigheten av lekbasert læring og et helhetlig syn på barns utvikling. Avhandlingen består av en kappe og fire artikler, der jeg utforsker hvordan barnehagelærere forholder seg til ulike dominerende forståelser av hva det vil si å være «skoleklar» og hvordan dette former deres interaksjoner med barn, foreldre og andre aktører innenfor utdanningsfeltet. De tre første artiklene tar utgangspunkt i en intervjustudie der jeg retter blikket mot hvordan norske og danske barnehagelærere erfarer myndighetenes økte bruk av språkkartleggingstiltak i barnehager som befinner seg i områder der en stor andel av befolkningen har minoritetsspråklig bakgrunn. I den fjerde artikkelen ser jeg på hva tidligere empirisk forskning sier om barnehagelæreres oppfatninger av skoleklarhet. Artikkelen tegner et større bilde av hva internasjonal forskning sier om hvilke faktorer som påvirker barnehagelæreres syn på skoleklarhet, hvorvidt barnehagelæreres oppfatninger av skoleklarhet har endret seg i lys av politiske reformer på barnehagefeltet og hvordan forskningen varierer på tvers av landegrenser. Samlet beskriver avhandlingen hvordan nåværende politiske endringer på barnehagefeltet er med på å forme barnehagens samfunnsmandat, barnehagelæreres arbeid og rolle, samt hvordan sosial reproduksjon av ulikhet mellom majoritet og minoritet kan bli forsterket og legitimert gjennom institusjonaliserte prosesser i barnehagen i tiden fram mot skolestart.