Macquarie University ResearchOnline

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.14/157352

Title

An analysis of the conceptualisation of 'quality' in early childhood education and care empirical research : promoting 'blind spots' as foci for future research

Related

Contemporary issues in early childhood, Vol. 12, Issue 2, (2011), p.102-117

DOI

10.2304/ciec.2011.12.2.102

Publisher

Symposium Journals

Date

2011

Author/Creator

Fenech, Marianne

Description

This article critically analyses how empirical research investigating quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) in the period 1980-2008 has conceptualised 'quality'. Applying Foucault's notion of 'critique' to 338 peer-reviewed journal articles uncovered six interconnected truths: quality is an objective reality; quality enhances children's optimal development; quality is the domain of science/psychology; quality can be known from researchers' perspectives; quality can be understood using an ecological framework that is limited to child, familial and childcare variables; and quality ECEC is more pertinent to preschoolers than babies and infants. The article problematises these prevailing truths, arguing that the dominance of positivist discourse in ECEC research has limited how quality ECEC can be thought and talked about. An addressing of the blind spots this article identifies has the potential to lead to more developed and nuanced understandings of quality ECEC.

Description

16 page(s)

Resource Type

journal article

Organisation

Macquarie University. Institute of Early Childhood

---

Identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/1959.14/157352

Identifier

ISSN:1463-9491

Identifier

mq_res-ext-2-s2.0-80053333168

Language

eng

Reviewed

Save/E-mail Citation

Citation Format

Plain Text Citation HTML Citation EndNote Format

E-mail Address

Subject

"Contemporary issues in early childhood"

 

OR