Remove ‘care’ and stir: modernizing early childhood teacher education in Norway

ABSTRACT

There is growing concern within the field of education regarding how the implementation of national frameworks based on the European Qualifications Framework displaces tacit and less traditionally formalized knowledge from policy. This issue is particularly salient concerning national frameworks that regulate early childhood teacher education, in which knowledge and competencies about caring are crucial, though under-articulated. The proportion of under three-year olds who participate in government subsidized early childhood education and care programs in Norway has risen from 37% in 2000 to over 82% in 2016. Amidst this historic rise, the word ‘care’ was removed from Norway’s most recent National Framework for Early Childhood Teacher Education. Whilst policy analyses generally focus on the content of policy texts, in this article, I examine the circumstances surrounding the curious disappearance of text, namely the key concept of care. Combining a Foucauldian concern with discourse with Malabou’s concept of plasticity, this article reports on a plastic discourse analysis of the removal of care from the newest framework for early childhood teacher education in Norway.

KEYWORDS:

• Policy analysis
• early childhood education
• care
• discourse analysis
• plasticity

Acknowledgments

This study is connected to a broader project, Searching for Qualities, funded by the Research Council of Norway. The focus of the project is to investigate and enhance the quality in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) for children under the age of three years in a context characterized by considerable transitions in Norwegian ECEC.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The exception was Kristin Tholin (2014) who pointed out the curious missing term in her article ‘Omsorg er fjernet!’ (Care is removed!). She asks what kind of signal the removal of care is sending and what the explanation for it could be. In this article, I share her interest and seek some answers to these questions.

2. One former minister agreed to a full interview, while the other agreed only to a brief telephonic exchange.

3. The Norwegian term ‘danning’ is translated into English as ‘formation’, but can best be described with the German term Bildung, referring to cultural or comprehensive development.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Teresa K. Aslanian

Teresa K. Aslanian is a PhD candidate  in Educational Sciences for Teacher Education at the Department of Early Childhood Education at Oslo Metropolitan University. Her research is concerned with re-theorizing care and love  as a professional practice in early childhood education through critical and posthuman theories.