The intensification of performativity in early childhood education

Abstract

Operating within a neoliberal education reform context, performativity and teaching in schools has been a focus of study for a number of years. However, less is known about the effects of performativity on teaching and curriculum in the early childhood (preschool) context. Making a case for the intensification of performativity in Australian early childhood education, this paper reports on findings from a doctoral study and draws on research literature from the past fourteen years to illustrate how performative measures have increasingly affected teaching and curriculum. The way that performativity has intensified is discussed in three chronological phases, performativity emerging, consolidating and normalised. Teacher interview transcripts and curricular related policies were analysed using critical discourse analysis and Ranson’s typology of accountability regimes. Findings reveal that early childhood teachers have different ways of responding to performativity, with the teacher featured in this paper displaying three types of performative accountability: anxiety, confidence, and disregard. An implication arising from this paper’s findings illustrates how the effects of performativity on teaching and curriculum can be complex, contradictory and at times, unintended.

Keywords:

• early childhood teaching
• performativity
• curriculum
• accountability
• critical discourse analysis

Acknowledgment

Thank you to my PhD supervisors for their critical insights throughout my study and to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments. Special thanks to The Warrnambool Collective.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anna Kilderry

Anna Kilderry is a senior lecturer in the School of Education, Faculty of Arts and Education, Deakin University, Geelong Waurn Ponds Campus, Locked Bag 20000, Geelong, Victoria 3220, Australia. Anna researches from a critical perspective and her research focuses on early childhood curriculum, pedagogy and policy. Her work has been published in the Journal of Education Policy, and in a range of international journals and edited books.