Global to local perspectives of early childhood education and care

Global interest in the provision of early childhood education and care (ECEC) services has perhaps never been greater (Miller & Cameron, 2014). ECEC has a long history of sharing ideas internationally, with the global transfer of ideas on ECEC representing a broad range of theoretical approaches from established perspectives on child development and pedagogical practice to the relative newcomers of economics and neuro-science. Recent global interest in the social welfare function of ECEC has led to increased scrutiny of ECEC services with a thirst for evidence that demonstrates ‘effective’ practice. What ‘effective’ practice means and from whose perspective is now a matter of numerous theoretical contemplations and empirical research under the wing of both ECEC policy and theory, though based on different starting points and with different agendas. Our initial call for papers on Global to Local Perspectives of ECEC was motivated by what we saw as the growing global interest in ECEC being increasingly framed by narrow perspectives of ECEC as a social investment strategy to provide children with the foundations to their lifelong learning within the global knowledge economy. The interpretation of ‘effective’ was, therefore, one that sought to demonstrate ECEC as having an impact on children’s development and later learning. As we outline in the following section, we identify this global discourse as having consequences for conceptions of the role of ECEC services, children and their families.

Given our perspective, we anticipated papers on the tensions between the global and their consequences for the local lives of ECEC services, children and families. However, our conception of the local was less clear and so we were interested to discover how others interpreted the relationship between the global and the local. Whilst there was evidence that the global discourses could be constraining (Millei & Gallagher, 2017); generate mixed feelings between welcomed intervention and compromised pedagogical ideals (Kinkead-Clark, 2017); instrumentalizing childhood and children (Babić, 2017) or creating confused messages as to the social welfare function of ECEC (Lundkvist, Nyby, Autto, & Nygård, 2017), we also observed that the discourses could offer the chance to convince governments of the need to invest in ECEC (Pisani, Dyenka, Sharma, Chhetri, Dang, Gayleg,& Wangdi, 2017) or raise questions as to how those working in ECEC are prepared to fulfil the ever-increasing expectations of them (Dubovicki & Jukić, 2017; Visković & Višnjić Jevtić, 2017; Vujičić & Čamber Tambolaš, 2017). We begin our discussion by presenting an overview of the globalization of ECEC, whilst offering a note to readers about ‘otherness’ and how reading about another context can reaffirm, challenge or extend our own thinking. We then draw attention to the global to local relationship, drawing on the papers included within the special issue. Through the discussion, we identify a paradox between an expectation of meeting global ECEC quality standards and finding culturally located solutions to local problems.

The global

The use of the term global signifies what we see as an increasing trend towards whole world views on ECEC services, particularly in relation to how their social-welfare function is conceived. Conversely, international implies a between-nations approach, such as the sharing of pedagogical approaches or the development of transnational research. There is an inevitable interplay between the global and the international (often the terms are used interchangeably) and we look to draw attention to the different research that exists in ECEC, from those that compare ECEC services internationally, considering structural attributes, to those that contemplate the sensitivities of the cultural context. Whilst we recognize the merits of international research and collaboration, we question whether there is now a series of global discourses on ECEC services – a series of taken-for-granted assumptions – that increasingly dominate thinking in ECEC.

The papers included in the special issue draw attention to how considering global to local perspectives is not solely about the tensions that can emerge between global discourses and culturally located solutions to the provision of ECEC services, or the everyday of local practice, but the interweaving of the two. Part of the multi-dimensional relationship between the global and the local is about considering personal readings of both the global discourses and our interpretations of a cultural other. As such, we encourage those reading the papers in this special issue to consider how their eyes might result in either polarizing the perspectives and approaches of other countries or developing an ethnographic dazzle that places other pedagogical methods onto a pedestal. The way in which an individual perceives a cultural other is well illustrated by considering what is being referred to as ECEC. ECEC is taken to represent services provided for children from birth prior to starting school, yet within a global context, this articulation of ECEC is deeply problematic. School starting ages vary globally, as do the services that might come before school, and depending on one’s own perspective, the school starting age of another country can be seen as shocking, desirable, normal, etc. There are clearly many structural differences to be considered, such as whether services are integrated or split (and associated interpretations of services as being care, education or educare in their focus), if they are state- or privately financed, the qualifications required of those working in the services and the curriculums that are (or may not be) in place. Part of the richness of sharing ideas on ECEC is analysing such structural differences, but there is a need to recognize that what is seen as desirable structures or practices can be informed by both our own subjectivities and the immersion of those subjectivities into certain local contexts, and global discourses. Considering our subjectivities enables such desirable structures to be questioned. Here we are concerned with whether the global discourses of ECEC would result in homogenizing the ways of understanding desirable ECEC attributes and children and the potential consequences of this in local contexts for theory, research and practice.

Global discourses of ECEC

Ideas on what childhood and children are and how young children should be cared for and educated have long been shared between countries (Georgeson, Payler, & Campbell-Barr, 2013) and have contributed to the international reputations of many ECEC pioneers, such as (but not exclusively) Froebel, Rousseau, Montessori and Vygotsky. The global sharing of ideas on ECEC is obviously facilitated by the advancement of technology, but also the support of funding schemes (such as Horizon 2020 from the European Commission) that support the global movement of researchers and pedagogues. The European Commission, along with other transnational organizations such as the OECD and World Bank, symbolizes the increase in research by supra-national organizations that looks to compare the provision of ECEC services in different countries. There are parallels between the developments in research and the conceptualization of the role of ECEC services. Taking the European Commission as an example, initial interest in the provision of ECEC by the European Commission focussed on the quantity of services in order to remove barriers to employment for parents, particularly in relation to equality agendas of supporting maternal employment (Milotay, 2016). Comparisons between European Member states focussed on the quantity of provision in line with the Barcelona Targets to extend the provision of ECEC services in Europe. More recently there has been a focus on the quality of ECEC (European Commission, 2014), drawing on research that recognizes that quality ECEC facilitates equality of opportunity amongst children through offering early intervention that improves the life chances of those from socio-economically disadvantaged families (Cohen & Korintus, 2017). The developments in European ECEC policy recommendations reflect a broader trend whereby ECEC is recognized as contributing to the social welfare agendas of supporting dual-earner parental models and investing in the foundations of children’s lifelong learning (Campbell-Barr & Leeson, 2016; White, 2011).

Recognition for the social welfare contribution of ECEC services is further illustrated by other supra-national organizations such as the World Bank, UNICEF and OECD and whilst not having the power to dictate national policy, they nonetheless seek to influence national policy direction, contributing to global ideas on the position, role and function of ECEC services. The OECD’s supra-national interest in quality ECEC for supporting children’s equality of opportunity is illustrated by its Starting Strong series (OECD, 2001, 2006, 2011, 2015b). The initial Starting Strong report sought to present a culturally sensitive analysis of ECEC services in the different OECD countries, but later reports have shifted their focus to offering advice and guidance on the provision of ECEC services from matters relating to structural issues to those of national governance (Moss et al., 2016). The last two reports are explicitly focussed on the quality of ECEC (OECD, 2011, 2015b) and make the associations between the quality of ECEC and child development explicit, providing guidelines on how to achieve, improve and monitor quality. The reports are symbolic of the OECD approach of comparing structural indicators, alongside offering snippets of ‘best practice’, underpinned by panels of experts, to provide an evidence base for their advice and guidance (Mahon & McBride, 2009). The approach is an interesting combination of the global and the local, whereby the former is reflected in the structural comparisons and the latter becomes the snippets of best practice. The OECD’s approach to quality has been identified as part of a wider trend to attempt to define, measure and observe quality in relation to measurable outcomes for ECEC services (Moss et al., 2016). As such, the approach is an attempt to conceptualize ECEC quality as specific, standardized, measurable and assessable using evidence-based tools.

Recently the OECD published a call for tenders for the International Early Learning Study (OECD, 2015a), dubbed the Baby PISA. The study will look to assess the learning outcomes of ECEC services in order to enable countries to compare their performance in a similar way to the PISA studies (OECD, 2014). The International Early Learning Study (IELS) illustrates an interpretation of ECEC services as a social good based on a set of predetermined indicators, but there are also wider implications and criticisms. For example, Urban and Swadener (2016), Moss et al. (2016) and Pence (2017) as proponents of contextualized approaches to ECEC argue that the purpose of what the IELS is set to achieve will not be met as the nature of the gathered data will not influence an improvement in children’s everyday learning experiences, development and well-being. Yet despite such criticisms, the associations between the IELS and the PISA studies indicate the potential power of the IELS in the future. International comparisons can stimulate educational reforms, which often implies stimulating investment in the educational field (McNess, Arthur, & Crossley, 2015), and can promote educational tourism (Marshall, 2014). Germany offers an example of a country that substantially revised its educational policy in response to a poor ranking in the global PISA league tables (McNess et al., 2015). Conversely, the international reputation of Finland’s education model has been supported by successive good performances in the PISA tests, contributing to their PISA tourism (Marshall, 2014). The examples of Germany and Finland illustrate the name-and-shame or gold standard potential of the IELS and how international comparisons contribute to the development of common structures for, and ideas on, education and ECEC services (Cohen & Korintus, 2017).

The last several decades have globally been characterized by various economic, political, social, cultural and other changes. Within global discourses, childhood and children have stepped out of the solely familial domain and have become widely politicized issues subjected to public debates and political agendas (Leira & Saraceno, 2008). Children’s age is used as the defining criterion that determines children’s everyday lives – where children ‘should be’ (at home/at school), what they ‘should do’, who they ‘should be’ with, whether they can decide about their lives for themselves, what is ‘normal’, that is, expected of them and so on. Largely influenced by western notions, global discourses prescribe these aspects of children’s everyday lives, often disregarding specificities of other sociocultural contexts. For example, the normal child that shapes the discourses around investments in ECEC services is likely to be a western child (Tobin, 2005), with the constructions of desirable development being bound by what it is that western societies deem (guess) children will require as future citizens. Lingard, Martino, and Rezai-Rashti (2013, p. 540) call this phenomenon ‘global panopticism’, in which the ‘global eye functions in a regulatory capacity across and within national states’.

International studies, such as those undertaken by the OECD and European Commission, contribute to global discourses on the provision of ECEC services – they have a strong influence on global political agendas and disseminate their own definitions and truths about best practice (Campbell-Barr & Leeson, 2016). For example, ECEC policies emphasize the importance of including an ever-increasing number of children in ECEC institutions starting from a younger age. Along with the previously mentioned justifications for children’s institutionalization, such as maternal employment and compensating opportunities for children from disadvantaged families, one of the most commonly mentioned justifications is viewing the age from birth to school as a ‘formative age’, in which we ‘lay the foundation’ for lifelong learning (European Commission, 2014, p. 3). Institutionalization is viewed as children’s preparation for success in school, simultaneously preventing their future potential early school leaving (Commission/EACEA/Eurydice/Eurostat., 2014). Emphasis on children’s future success, both educational and economic, fits well with ideas about global knowledge economies, linking knowledge and innovation with economic growth. Institutionalization of childhood and children is characterized by comprehensiveness and universality in terms of objectives, contents, evaluation, etc. (e.g. Janta, 2014). Thus, whilst we recognize that the international research on ECEC has contributed to ECEC gaining in prominence and recognition, we are concerned with the consequences of this at the level of both conceptualizations about ECEC services and ECEC practices.

The contextual

In terms of scale, the influence of supra-national organizations assumes an epistemological hierarchy at which they (the supra-national organizations) are at the top. However, the examples of the papers in this special issue illustrate how this can be contested – for example, by asking questions about advocating the importance of the provision of ECEC services in sociocultural contexts where they did not exist before, or by asking questions about the possible implications ECEC could have on undervaluing parental care for children or undervaluing the emotional benefits of parenthood (Leira & Saraceno, 2008). Such questions draw attention to how constructions of the role and purpose of ECEC services have consequences for how we understand childhood, children and families. However, as cultural relativists such as Tobin (2005) would argue, all these are just ideas and beliefs, or stories (Moss, 2015, p. 4) based on a certain way of thinking and seeing the world within a cultural context, which is far from unambiguous. There are questions of what knowledge underpins the justifications, that which is lost or archived out of recognition and who determines the knowledge that is seen and heard. This would imply the importance of asking questions about the taken-for-granted when it comes to ECEC, whether we are questioning its theoretical postulates or everyday ‘best’ practices, whether the evidence-based data come from child development or neuro-science, because knowing how a child develops does not impose any particular model of ECEC practice (Tobin, 2005).

Increasingly there is an appreciation for the need to recognize the historical and cultural context for shaping both the structure and conceptualizations of ECEC services (Oberhuemer, 2014). For example, there is a dominance of Anglo-American theories on ECEC (Rhedding-Jones, 2005), facilitated by the use of the English language, but there is a need to consider the relevance of such theories in different contexts. Even the use of English will prescribe particular understandings onto ECEC services (Urban, 2014). The term ‘services’ as such could be problematized (Dahlberg, Pence, & Moss, 2013; Urban, 2014 ) because it might imply that parents are ‘clients’ and practices are ‘technologies’ leading to predetermined outcomes (Urban, 2014, p. 83). Does this mean care and education are just services – goods provided to parents and what does this say about the position of children? The term ‘provision’ is also problematic when translating it into Croatian, for example. It is very difficult to find an equivalent phrase for it, without stepping into managerial, technocratic vocabulary, which contrasts with the dominant terminology used in relation to ECEC in Croatian. Clearly, language cannot be taken as being the equivalent to shared understandings, because if we see it as the lens through which we perceive the world, then there is much about the ways in which language is used and ascribes cultural meanings that illustrate the importance of acknowledging the cultural context (Alexander, 2000).

The work of Tobin, Hsueh, and Karasawa (2009) has drawn attention to the importance of the cultural context for making sense of ECEC in local contexts, and also for appreciating how one’s own culture will shape the reading and interpretation of another. Tobin (2005) acknowledges that some ideas on ECEC will lend themselves to travel, being presented in such a way that they are less culturally specific and more generalizable than others. Using the example of the international reputation of Reggio Emilia and the ideas of Loris Malaguzzi, Tobin identifies that the spread of ideas will have been shaped by factors such as Italy’s history of sharing ECEC pedagogical practices (e.g. Montessori), but also that the principles of the Reggio Approach are likely to appeal to liberal-minded educationists, not to mention that northern Italy is beautiful to travel to. However, the development of ECEC services in Reggio Emilia was grounded within the cultural context and history – a local solution to a desire for new approaches to education that emerged in a Fascist era. Whilst we recognize that the pedagogical ideas from Reggio Emilia are identified as an ‘approach’ (not as a specific method), there remain questions of its relevance and applicability in other cultural contexts.

The papers within the special issue all illustrate the complexities as to what is understood as culture and there is evidence of slippage in the use of the term, such as culture being synonymous with national or being more localized, such as the culture of an ECEC centre. Culture has many layers (Alexander, 2000). For example, for one of us geography presents the notion of a British, English and Cornish culture, whilst for the other culture has even greater complexities, such as the continental and Mediterranean culture in Croatia, or even more specifically, Zagorje, Međimurje, Lika, Slavonian, Istrian, Dalmatian, etc. cultures that have throughout history been under the influences of various other neighbouring cultures. In addition to these geographical attributes come those of gender, social class, religion, ethnicity, etc. Our focus on the local is therefore about considering the intricacies of what the local might mean for ECEC, such as national curriculums combined with the culture of a specific local setting and culture of an individual ECEC centre within that local setting.

Towards the local

The sharing of ideas on ECEC is clearly evident within the papers included in this special issue, where we observe the influence of supra-national organizations in different cultural contexts, the incorporation of ideas about supporting parental employment and providing the foundations to children’s lifelong learning, alongside a questioning of the global transference of ideas on ECEC. For example, Li and Chen (2017) write about the history of ECEC in China, illustrating much of what the above discussion on the cultural context has sought to draw attention to, through considering how borrowing ideas from other countries can result in an uneasy fit between historical and new conceptions of ECEC. Li and Chen draw attention to the notion of cultural universalism, whereby there is a notion of a ‘best’ culture that neglects to consider how importing different educational models and philosophies maybe misplaced in the local sociocultural context. Importantly, they consider how attempts to change the ideologies around ECEC cannot solely be a top-down process as it requires a preparation of teachers.

Kinkead-Clark (2017), writing in the Jamaican context, also acknowledges the competing ideas on ECEC and the tensions that can emerge between old (Jamaican) ideas on ECEC and new global perspectives. Teachers can feel that their personal beliefs are compromised as a result of trying to balance the global ideas on ECEC and the demands of international stakeholders. Within the Jamaican context, international stakeholders have provided investment into ECEC services, creating an additional dynamic to the global-to-local relationship, whereby the global can be seen as offering opportunity and resources, but also as interfering. Those working in ECEC, therefore, find themselves balancing the perspectives of different stakeholders alongside their own beliefs. The example of Jamaica is one where the global discourse of ECEC as the foundations to lifelong learning is adopted to generate support and investment in ECEC, recognizing Jamaica’s place within the global economy, but balancing this with local perspectives.

Taylor et al. (2017) discuss Tasmania’s child and family centres, illustrating another example of ECEC as grounded in global agendas of providing equal opportunities for children from socio-economically disadvantaged communities, but focussing more specifically on where different approaches are needed to address barriers to parental involvement in ECEC services. Among others, community-based child and family centres provide services tailored to parents’ specific local needs, which enables them to view ECEC services in a more positive way. This is an example of the global meeting the local and finding a middle step between what ‘must’ be achieved and what is present in a specific context.

The meeting of the global and the local is evident within other papers and how there can be different readings of the global as a result of the local context. The adoption of the discourse of lifelong learning is similarly evident in Bhutan (Pisani et al., 2017), whereby there is a desire for data in order to make the case for investing in ECEC. Therefore, within Bhutan, the use of the global discourse of ECEC as the foundations for lifelong learning needs to be proved to generate further investment. However, this desire for data is contrasted to the Australian context, where Millei and Gallagher (2017) explore how the global discourse of ECEC as the foundation to children’s lifelong learning has shaped Australian ECEC policy, underpinned by a ‘scientisation’ of data-based evidence. Millei and Gallagher draw attention to how the numbers that form a part of ECEC policy become a part of a regulatory gaze on ECEC services and the children that attend them, from the numbers present in the funding allocated to provide ECEC services and the impact of staff working unpaid hours, to how the political choice to offer 15 hours of free early education in the Australian context impacts on how ECEC services operate and how children and their families engage with them. The contrasts in the perspectives on data illustrate how global ideas on ECEC are incorporated into national contexts in different ways, drawing on the discursive formation of ECEC in variable ways in order to support national and local needs.

Lundkvist et al. (2017), writing from the Finnish context, acknowledge the international reputation of Finland’s education model, but also offer an insight into the reading of global discourses on ECEC and how they relate to local interpretations. As such, Lundkvist et al. trace the dual strands of ECEC as a social investment strategy in regard to supporting parental employment and investing in children’s lifelong learning, but they also recognize how national challenges, such as the requirement for austerity measures (something that is not unique to Finland), will impact on how global discourses are implemented in national policy. Outlining different normative ways of thinking about ECEC, they analyse how the context of a country impacts on the implementation of the normative ways of thinking. Lundkvist et al. (2017) draw attention to how there is something of a Finnish reading of supporting children’s lifelong learning, whereby the welfare of the children and their well-being is emphasized as opposed to an economic rational of investing in their lifelong learning. However, in austere times, such readings can be lost or compromised in the national interest of balancing the books.

The examples of Finland, Australia, Bhutan, Jamaica and China illustrate how different countries are at different stages of developing ECEC, from the established models of Finland to the emerging ones of Bhutan. The different stages of development have consequences for the engagement with global ideas on ECEC and whilst we anticipated seeing elements of resistance, whereby global ideas were seen as a constraining force, such as the example from Australia (Millei & Gallagher, 2017), we were interested to see that the discourse of lifelong learning could also be a tool within countries seeking to generate further investment into ECEC. However, within the papers there is evidence that the incorporation of global perspectives into national contexts also has consequences for those working in ECEC, such as the balancing of new ideas and personal perspectives (Kinkead-Clark, 2017) and the impositions on the daily running of an ECEC centre (Millei & Gallagerher, 2017). Thus, whilst we had not anticipated that the local would have parallels with initial training and professional development, we found that this was a common theme within the papers.

The local workforce

The global interest in ECEC begins to signal the increasing expectations of those who work in ECEC. Dubovicki and Jukić (2017) identify the challenges faced in preparing future pedagogues to work in ECEC in Croatia due to the continued expansion of what pedagogues are expected to know. In particular, Dubovicki and Jukić focus on the challenges of preparing to work with children with additional needs, reflecting that equality of access to ECEC will result in staff members meeting children with a broad range of needs and backgrounds. Dubovicki and Jukić (2017), illustrate that it is the combination of theory and practice in initial ECEC training that will support student preparation for working with children. Their research identifies the importance of practical training in the initial preparation of the ECEC workforce, whilst also signalling the expansion in what those working in ECEC are expected to know. With our focus on Global to Local Perspectives, the notion of a global child that underpins knowledge about child development (for example) is called into question, because within the local there are children with different needs.

In addition to the additional needs that children may have within ECEC centres, Visković and Višnjić Jevtić (2017) note how the global mobilization of people contributes to the diversity in the families that those working in ECEC may encounter. Therefore, pedagogues will meet parents who do not necessarily share the same culture and values. Parents can have different understandings and expectations of ECEC. Whilst different values between pedagogues and parents are not unique to the consequences of the global mobilization of families, Visković and Višnjić Jevtić’s (2017) paper is pertinent to the notion of meeting an ‘other’ and the role of training in supporting pedagogues in meeting and supporting ‘other’ families. Whilst global perspectives appear to present a global child, such views do not support pedagogues in the challenges of working with diverse groups of children. Visković and Višnjić Jevtić’s (2017) identify the place of professional development for supporting pedagogues to work with families, but this requires pedagogues to be open to the concept of self-development.

Vujičić and Čamber Tambolaš (2017) explore how individual pedagogues will have beliefs, values and knowledge that will come together to form a network of rituals within a group. Professional development opportunities offer the potential to change the beliefs, values and knowledge of a pedagogue, but this will be dependent on the initial values and beliefs held about the benefits (or not) of professional development. Vujičić and Čamber Tambolaš identify a range of different professional development approaches from workshops to action research, raising pertinent questions as to what is regarded as professional development. However, they conclude that positive attitudes to the profession and professional development are associated with positive outcomes from professional development activities. Therefore as the children’s and families’ needs change, there is a requirement for those working in ECEC to be open to change in order to further develop their beliefs, values and knowledge. However, whilst we identify with the benefits of initial and continuous professional development, we also reiterate the growing expectations of those working in ECEC and the pressures to continuously develop as a pedagogue.

The global ideas on ECEC clearly have implications for the daily practice of those who work in ECEC, but throughout our discussion, we have alluded to the consequences that global perspectives on ECEC have for children. Babić (2017) explores how the dominant ideas on children and ECEC have consequences for concepts of childhood, whereby there is an institutionalization of childhood based on economic models that offer no trust in children’s current abilities, only investment in the child as a future adult. Babić challenges those working in ECEC to consider whether they really listen to children or if the asymmetry of power only affords children agency when it is given by an adult. Thus, even in trying to resist the regulatory gaze of lifelong learning, there will always be an adult filter. What is illuminating about Babić’s paper is that the global views of ECEC as preparing for school are evident in what children say, raising pertinent questions as to the sheer weight of influence that the ECEC discourses have. Babić encourages readers to listen to children’s perspectives in order to reconsider the global views on ECEC and to open up alternative ideas and stories.

Conclusion

In preparing this special issue on Global and Local Perspectives of Early Childhood Education and Care, we have had to analyse our own assumptions about the consequences of global ideas for ECEC services (and their consequences for understanding children) and appreciate that there are different readings of the global discourses. Whilst we had anticipated a global panopticism, whereby global ideas on ECEC operate as a regulatory gaze across and within national states (Lingard et al., 2013), we have also begun to appreciate the different ways in which discourses are utilized. The investment discourse of ECEC as providing the foundations to children’s lifelong learning is evident within the papers, but is engaged with in different ways – from resistance to acceptance – to meet the needs of the local. The global-to-local paradox is therefore perhaps less about meeting global expectations for quality ECEC and finding culturally located solutions to local problems, but about developing a multi-directional and dynamic relationship between the two. Within the papers in this special issue, there is evidence of the different ways in which the papers presented are seeking to make sense of this relationship, such as the forging together of different perspectives on ECEC, whether that is global investors and local staff or parents and staff. Yet in looking at these relationships, it is clear that those working in ECEC are both witnessing an expansion in the expectations of their role and, consequently, facing new and renewed challenges for working in ECEC.

Generally, within social sciences, there is a contemporary tendency towards ‘provincialization’ of the ‘epistemic and cultural premises’ of the western world (Bhambra & de Sousa Santos, 2017, p. 4). In this sense, the question remains whether the global influences in ECEC will remain dominant, but with a special sensitivity towards the local, or whether these global frameworks along with our own subjectivities will disable us from ever being able to comprehend the cultural other (Bhambra & de Sousa Santos, 2017).