"Playcentre is special": Playcentre, parenting and policy

Abstract

"We'll fit in your scheme without too much fuss/But honestly folks, your scheme should fit us." These lines from a 1989 poem by an anonymous Playcentre writer expressed frustration at fitting into changing early childhood educational policy that was designed around services that employed teachers. In contrast, Playcentres have always operated as parent-cooperative early childhood and adult education services, where trained parents are the educators in the service. This study adds to the scholarly literature on the history of early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Aotearoa New Zealand by examining the effects of government policy on Playcentres in particular, primarily between the years of 1988 and 2011. The approach to policy analysis developed by Carol Bacchi, called What's the Problem Represented to Be?,is used as the methodological framework. This approach is based on the premise that all policies contain a constructed representation of the problem that the policy seeks to solve. These problem representations result in particular lived, discursive and subjectification effects, which will benefit some groups more than others. The study takes the Early Childhood Education Taskforce report of 2011 as its starting point. The two main problem representations identified are a lack of participation in ECEC services, and an overall lack of baseline quality in those services. The development of these problem representations over three decades is related to the political shift to neoliberalism, and an association of ECEC services with human capital development. Effects of these problem representations have created issues of sustainability for Playcentres, and discouraged the subject position of parents as capable educators, a central concept in Playcentre philosophy. This thesis makes two policy recommendations: one is to establish integrated service hubs based around ECEC services, and the other is to reinstate ECEC charters negotiated between parents, the service and the government. These structures would allow for parents-as-educators in ECEC services and for democratic input into the aims and evaluation of ECEC services.