Travelling inscriptions of neo-liberalism in Nordic early childhood: Repositioning professionals for teaching and learnability

In: Global studies of childhood: GSC, Band 6, Heft 1, S. 80-97

Abstract

This article traces the travelling of neo-liberal learning discourses through and between international and local political documents and practices. It does so by focusing on professionalism in Norway's Early Childhood Education and Care. The investigation explores how particular discourses are taken up, merged and transformed in relation to the Norwegian tradition of child-centred pedagogy. Here, neo-liberal discourses can be seen as travelling through political and economic policies, as identified in documents and white papers produced locally and centrally. This travelling is further traced through the discursive positioning of professional pedagogues, as they talk about children's transition from ' barnehage1' (kindergarten) to school. The analysis shows how neo-liberal learning discourses appropriate and merge with traditional Nordic discourses of self-responsibility and independence, regulating spaces for professional positions in new, largely unnoticed ways in Norway.