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Journal ArticleDOI

Problematising policies for workforce reform in early childhood education: A rhetorical analysis of England's Early Years Teacher Status

TL;DR: This paper examined workforce reform in early childhood education in England, specifically the policy trajectory that led to implementation of the Early Years Teacher Status (EYTS) qualification in 2014, taking a critical perspective on policy analysis, the paper uses rhetorical analysis to make sense of the how EYTS is understood within workforce reform.
Abstract: This paper examines workforce reform in early childhood education in England, specifically the policy trajectory that led to implementation of the Early Years Teacher Status (EYTS) qualification in 2014. Taking a critical perspective on policy analysis, the paper uses rhetorical analysis to make sense of the how EYTS is understood within workforce reform. From an assemblage of salient policy documents, we report our critical analysis of two key texts: Foundations for Quality and More Great Childcare. Both documents identify policy levers and drivers for reform, but from markedly different perspectives and with contrasting recommendations. By using rhetorical analysis to examine how these policy texts construct not only problems but also preferred solutions, we illustrate the paradoxical nature of early childhood policy in England as it relates to aspirations to raise the status of the sector and improve quality through the implementation of EYTS.
Citations
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01 Jan 2006
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that policy and decision-makers need to recognise the difference between these modes, select optimal mixes and their associated components in order to create the space necessary for more meaningful dialogue and interaction to occur between the most favorable elements.
Abstract: The state and the market have long been recognized as the key modes of social organization underpinning democratic society. However, the failure of these governance modes to solve complex public problems meant that new ways of working had to be devised. As a result, networks and the network governance mode have come to the fore. While inextricably inter-related, each of these three modes is underpinned by differing operating frameworks which are grounded in contrasting rule systems, moral orders and rationales and each requires different actors, institutional arrangements and strategies. As a result of adopting and utilizing these differing approaches, the current policy arena is comprised of aspects of all three governance modes. However, not only do these modes stand alone, they often appear in cross-cutting, hybrid governance forms. This situation leads to governance complexity and what is contended to be a "crowded" policy domain in which differing governance arrangements, policy prescriptions, participants and processes bump up against and even compete with each other to cause overlap and confusion and, potentially erode the potential for positive service delivery and programme outcomes. This paper argues therefore that policy and decision-makers need to recognise the difference between these modes, select optimal mixes and their associated components in order to create the space necessary for more meaningful dialogue and interaction to occur between the most favourable elements. It is contended that what is required is an ability to effectively isolate, select and, mix and match governance aspects of each of the three modes and thereby orchestrate the varying, and often competing, elements of these modes residing in the policy domain into harmonious collective action. The paper proceeds by tracing the evolution of the expanded mix, sets out a coherent framework to aid decision-making and explores the challenges faced by governments in balancing the structural and operational mechanisms necessary to sustain the engagement of such a diverse set of players.

16 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors report the ways in which educational leaders in Australian early childhood education workplaces are interpreting and implementing their mandatory role, and argue the work of educational leaders is primarily oriented towards raising the status and capacity of their colleagues as a pre-requisite for high-quality outcomes, and that concepts of quality operate instead as mediating tools.

14 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a rhetorical analysis of policy texts illustrating the emergence of the mandatory Educational Leader role in early childhood services in Australia is presented, and the authors argue that policy texts bef...
Abstract: This paper reports a rhetorical analysis of policy texts illustrating the emergence of the mandatory Educational Leader role in early childhood services in Australia. We argue that policy texts bef...

7 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the context of an ongoing policy crisis in relation to the qualifications of the early childhood workforce in England, the authors presented a framework for career structure and professional early childhood education qualifications in England.
Abstract: In the context of an ongoing policy crisis in relation to the qualifications of the early childhood workforce in England, this paper first rehearses the context and long overdue need for reform before presenting a framework for career structure and professional early childhood education qualifications in England. This framework is designed to address difficulties of recruitment, retention, and progression, and thereby raise the status of qualifications and the roles they enable early years practitioners to undertake. The paper ends by reiterating the importance of qualifications for those working in early childhood education, what they need to study and how what they study equips them for their various roles.

6 citations


Cites background from "Problematising policies for workfor..."

  • ...…Social Mobility Commission 2020), and academic commentaries and analyses (Osgood 2009; Nutbrown 2013; Kempton 2014; Barron 2016; Campbell-Barr 2018; Kay et al. 2021) the crisis of qualifications persists (Nuttall et al. 2020); indeed, it is particularly noteworthy that four key reports on…...

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the dominant discourse in current policy agendas in UK and international contexts, fulfilling a range of goals such as providing children with the "best start in life" by breaking...
Abstract: School readiness is a dominant discourse in current policy agendas in UK and international contexts, fulfilling a range of goals such as providing children with the ‘best start in life’ by breaking...

5 citations

References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors discusses the rise of New Public Management (NPM) as an alternative to the tradition of public accountability embodied in progressive-era public administration ideas and argues that there was considerable variation in the extent to which different OECD countries adopted NPM over the 1980s.
Abstract: Changes in public sector accounting in a number of OECD countries over the 1980s were central to the rise of the “New Public Management” (NPM) and its associated doctrines of public accountability and organizational best practice. This paper discusses the rise of NPM as an alternative to the tradition of public accountability embodied in progressive-era public administration ideas. It argues that, in spite of allegations of internationalization and the adoption of a new global paradigm in public management, there was considerable variation in the extent to which different OECD countries adopted NPM over the 1980s. It further argues that conventional explanations of the rise of NPM (“Englishness”, party political incumbency, economic performance record and government size) seem hard to sustain even from a relatively brief inspection of such cross-national data as are available, and that an explanation based on initial endowment may give us a different perspective on those changes.

3,281 citations


"Problematising policies for workfor..." refers background in this paper

  • ...Third, we argue that the early years profession in England has become subject to some of the most egregious aspects of new public management (Hood 1995), namely surveillance and responsibilisation....

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  • ...Third, we claim that the early years profession in England has become subject to one of the most egregious aspects of new public management (Hood 1995): the illusion of devolution versus the realities of surveillance and responsibilisation....

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Journal Article
TL;DR: The rhetorical situation is the context in which speakers or writers create rhetorical discourse as mentioned in this paper, which is not a standard term in the vocabulary of rhetorical theory, and therefore it is difficult to define it.
Abstract: found himself in an ethical situation, we understand that he probably either contemplated or made some choice or action from a sense of duty or obligation or with a view to the Good. In other words, there are circumstances of this or that kind of structure which are recognized as ethical, dangerous, or embarrassing. What characteristics, then, are implied when one refers to "the rhetorical situation" the context in which speakers or writers create rhetorical discourse? Perhaps this question is puzzling because "situation" is not a standard term in the vocabulary of rhetorical theory. "Audience" is standard; so also are "speaker," "subject," "occasion," and "speech." If I were to ask, "What is a rhetorical audience?" or "What is a rhetorical subject?" the reader would catch the meaning of my question. When I ask, What is a rhetorical situation?, I want to know the nature of those contexts in which speakers or writers create rhetorical discourse: How should they be described? What are their characteristics? Why and how do they resuit in the creation of rhetoric? By analogy, a theorist of science might well ask, What are the characteristics of situations which inspire scientific thought? A philosopher might ask, What is the nature of the situation in which a philosopher "does philosophy"? And a theorist of poetry might ask, How shall we describe the context in which poetry cornes into existence?

1,908 citations


"Problematising policies for workfor..." refers background or methods in this paper

  • ...our analysis – invention – as well as exploring the wider rhetorical situation (Bitzer 1968) to identify the exigencies of the policy agenda and its target audience....

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  • ...We primarily employed one of the canons of rhetoric in our analysis – invention – as well as exploring the wider rhetorical situation (Bitzer 1968) to identify the exigencies of the policy agenda and its target audience....

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Book
01 Oct 1994
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a critical analysis of educational reform in the UK and US, focusing on the following: education, majorism and the Curriculum of the Dead Education Policy, Power Relations and Teachers' Work Cost, Culture and Control - Self Management and Entrepreneurial Schooling "New Headship" - Schools Leadership, New Relationships and New Tensions Education Markets, Choice and Social Class: The Market as a Class Strategy in the United Kingdom and United States Competitive Schooling.
Abstract: Post-Structuralism, Ethnography and the Critical Analysis of Educational Reform What is Policy? - Texts, Trajectories and Toolboxes Education, Majorism and the Curriculum of the Dead Education Policy, Power Relations and Teachers' Work Cost, Culture and Control - Self Management and Entrepreneurial Schooling "New Headship" - Schools Leadership, New Relationships and New Tensions Education Markets, Choice and Social Class: The Market as a Class Strategy in the UK and US Competitive Schooling:. Values, Ethics and Cultural Engineering.

1,848 citations


"Problematising policies for workfor..." refers background in this paper

  • ...However, as Ball (1994) reminds us, practice is sophisticated, contingent, complex and unstable, so that policy will often be undercut by action,...

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  • ...However, as Ball (1994) reminds us, practice is sophisticated, contingent, complex and unstable, so that policy will often be undercut by action, including the embodied agency of those people who are its object (10–11)....

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Book
01 Jan 1999
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a pedagogical documentation as a practice for reflection and democracy in the context of the early childhood institution and the Stockholm project, which aims to construct an early childhood pedagogy that speaks in the voice of the child, the pedagogue and the parent.
Abstract: 1. What this book is about 2. Theoretical perspectives: modernity and postmodernity, power and ethics 3. Constructing early childhood institution: what do we think it is? 4. Constructing the early childhood institution: what do we think they are for? 5. Beyond the discourse of quality to the discourse of meaning making 6. The Stockholm project: constructing a pedagogy that speaks in the voice of the child, the pedagogue and the parent 7. Pedagogical documentation: a practice for reflection and democracy 8. Minority directions in the majority world: threats and possibilities

1,187 citations

Book
18 Jan 2008
TL;DR: The UK government's approach to public service reform is described in this article, where the authors present a short history of English education policy and present key issues: forms of policy and forms of equity.
Abstract: Introduction to key concepts: education policy, economic necessity and public service reform Class, comprehensives and continuities: a short history of English education policy Current policy models and The UK government's approach to public service reform Current key issues: forms of policy and forms of equity A sociology of education policy: past, present and future.

951 citations