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The intensification of performativity in early childhood education

journal contribution
posted on 2015-01-01, 00:00 authored by Anna KilderryAnna Kilderry
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.

History

Journal

Journal of curriculum studies

Volume

47

Pagination

633-652

Location

London, Eng.

ISSN

0022-0272

eISSN

1366-5839

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal, C Journal article

Copyright notice

2015, Taylor & Francis

Issue

5

Publisher

Taylor & Francis