ERIC Number: EJ1406962
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024
Pages: 19
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: EISSN-2000-4508
Available Date: N/A
"We Help Germany Create Greater Equality." Logics and Rationales in Exporting 'Scandinavian' Early Childhood Education and Care
Education Inquiry, v15 n1 p11-29 2024
This study targets hitherto largely understudied empirical processes and activities through which certain ideas and imaginaries are being commercialised and used by corporate actors in the global Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) industry. The aim is to analyse and critically discuss representations of the Scandinavian ECEC regime in the context of ECEC export. This is achieved empirically through a case study of a Swedish education company and its expansion in Germany, as well as by devoting analytical attention to the social, political and fantasmatic logics in the processes that constitute and characterise the "Scandinavian ECEC offer" as it is being exported. The analysis draws on corporate documents, websites and interviews with top-level company representatives. The analysis highlights how the Scandinavian ECEC regime is made up of four interlinked elements; equality, the autonomous child, integration of care and learning and outdoor pedagogy, aligned and sustained by "gripping" and "sticking" forces in fantasmatic logics that hide contingencies. In summary, the powerful imaginary of the Scandinavian ECEC regime, bringing accessibility, social justice, gender equality, nature, democracy, children's rights and autonomy, serves to conceal the political and ideological dimension of the economic logic of capitalism.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Documentation, Corporate Education, Early Childhood Education, Commercialization, Equal Education, Outdoor Education, Personal Autonomy, Child Care
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Early Childhood Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Scandinavia; Germany
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Author Affiliations: N/A