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Early childhood educators' work is embedded in the complexities of relations and relationships, and this relational work is entangled in care. Care can be difficult to define and is often assumed as an inherent 'good' in education. In heavily feminised work environments such as early childhood education, it is easily assumed to be part of what naturally occurs amongst educators and children. However, I suggest that it is dangerous to assume we understand a concept as complex and value laden as care without also engaging in reflection and analysis about the complexity and multiplicity of care. In this paper I will explore some threads of care in early childhood education and care. I make use of Braidotti's concept of cartographies to critically examine aspects of care in early childhood education. A cartography enables an exploration of power and knowledge in relation to care. Care, like classrooms, is messy, relational, in action, situated and contextual. This examination of care enables the perceived connection between care as a necessary 'good' to be contested. Instead, care is mapped across multiple threads and potentials, threads that might sometimes be warm and sustaining, while sometimes being oppressive and stressful.

The significant improvement in school access (particularly at the primary level) is one success story of the Education for All (EFA) movement and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). However, many already marginalised children were left further behind during the global mass enrolment drive of the 1990s and early 2000s, and today half of the world's children without basic skills in literacy or numeracy are actually in school, according to recent data from UNESCO (Rose, 2015). With the launch of the Incheon Declaration for Education 2030 in May 2015 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) later that year came a noticeable shift in the discourse, from an almost exclusive focus on expanding access to formal schooling to the improvement of the quality of education, specifically through the improvement of student learning outcomes. SDG 4 includes targets and corresponding indicators for basic literacy and numeracy achievement (Targets 4.1 and 4.6), for 'relevant skills … for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship' (Target 4.4), and, finally, for 'the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development' (Target 4.7). This emphasis on improving quality by improving learning outcomes has ignited an interest in teachers and teaching and, subsequently, has put teachers in a position of greater prominence on the SDG agenda in the form of a dedicated 'means of implementation' in Target 4.c: 'By 2030, substantially increase the supply of qualified teachers, including through international cooperation for teacher training in developing countries, especially least developed countries and small island developing States' (UNGA, 2015b). While some might view it as a promising development that teachers are included in the SDGs, in this chapter, we argue that how teachers are included in the agenda is a cause for concern for educationists and for the international community as a whole.