This paper draws on Bernstein's sociology of knowledge to examine the academic study of early childhood in England, involving scrutiny of how knowledge is recontextualised from contributory disciplines to take account of early childhood practice and professionalism, and of governmental influence on what counts as disciplinary and curriculum…

This paper uses the concept of the productive system to identify some of the tensions between the stages of professional development of early years practitioners and the relationships between the various actors within the system of professional formation in England. In the context of the recommendations of the Nutbrown Review a series of…