The Modern Child and the Flexible Labour Market

The Modern Child and the Flexible Labour Market

Studies in Childhood and Youth Series Editors: Allison James and Adrian L. James Titles include: Kate Bacon TWINS IN SOCIETY Parents, Bodies, Space and Talk David Buckingham and Vebjørg Tingstad (editors) CHILDHOOD AND CONSUMER CULTURE Allison James, Anne Trine Kjørholt and Vebjørg Tingstad (editors) CHILDREN, FOOD AND IDENTITY IN EVERYDAY LIFE Anne Trine Kjørholt and Jens Qvortrup (editors) THE MODERN CHILD AND THE FLEXIBLE LABOUR MARKET Early Childhood Education and Care Helen Stapleton SURVIVING TEENAGE MOTHERHOOD Myths and Realities Studies in Childhood and Youth Series Standing Order ISBN 978 0 230 21686 0 hardback (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England

The Modern Child and the Flexible Labour Market Early Childhood Education and Care Edited by Anne Trine Kjørholt and Jens Qvortrup Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway

Selection and editorial matter Anne Trine Kjørholt & Jens Qvortrup 2012 Individual chapters their respective authors 2012 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2012 978-0-230-57932-3 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2012 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan areregisteredtrademarksin theunitedstates, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-36796-2 ISBN 978-0-230-31405-4 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780230314054 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The modern child and the flexible labour market : early childhood education and care / edited by Anne Trine Kjørholt, Jens Qvortrup. p. cm. Includes index. Summary: This book sheds light on new research related to welfare state, childcare policies, and small children s everyday lives in instuitutions in a variety of countries. In uniting recent social childhood research, welfare perspectives and historical and comparative approaches, the book explores institutionalization as a feature of modern child life. Provided by publisher. 1. Childcare Government policy Europe. 2. Early childhood education Government policy Europe. 3. Family policy Europe. 4. Labor market Europe. I. Kjørholt, Anne Trine. II. Qvortrup, Jens. HQ778.7.E85M63 2011 362.71 2 dc22 2011013808 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12

Contents Tables Preface Notes on Contributors vii viii ix The Modern Child and the Flexible Labour Market: An Introduction 1 Anne Trine Kjørholt Part I The Labour Market and Institutionalization of Modern Childhood: Historical and Comparative Perspectives 1 Dilemmas over Childcare in Norway, Sweden and West Germany after 1945 19 Tora Korsvold 2 Childcare Policies at a Crossroads: The Case of Iceland 38 Guðný Björk Eydal 3 Free Choice or Gentle Force? How Can Parental Leave Change Gender Practices? 56 Berit Brandth and Elin Kvande 4 Flexible Flexibility : Norwegian Politics of Daycare 71 Minna Rantalaiho 5 Kindergartens in Denmark Reflections on Continuity and Change 90 Eva Gulløv Part II Flexible Spaces, Flexible Children? Contemporary Policy and Practice 6 Child-Centredness and the Child : The Cultural Politics of Nursery Schooling in England 111 Allison James v

vi Contents 7 Governed Markets and Democratic Experimentalism: Two Possibilities for Early Childhood Education and Care 128 Peter Moss 8 Daycare, Flexible Workers and the Combination of Work and Childcare 150 Birgitte Johansen 9 Kindergarten as a Bazaar: Freedom of Choice and New Forms of Regulation 168 Anne Trine Kjørholt and Monica Seland 10 Children s Sense of Place: Aspects of Individualization, Flexibility and Free Choice within the Preschool Context 186 Gunilla Halldén 11 Flexible Spaces Flexible Subjects in Nature : Transcending the Fenced Childhood in Daycare Centres? 203 Randi Dyblie Nilsen 12 Policies of Early Childhood Education and Care: Partnership and Individualization 222 Harriet Strandell Part III Concluding Thoughts 13 Users and Interested Parties: A Concluding Essay on Children s Institutionalization 243 Jens Qvortrup 14 Childhood and Social Investments: Concluding Thoughts 262 Anne Trine Kjørholt and Jens Qvortrup Index 275

Tables 2.1 Overview of entitlements to parental leave according to the Act on Maternity/Paternity and Parental Leave from 2000 42 2.2 Mothers and fathers uptake of maternity/paternity leave in Iceland, 2001 2007 43 2.3 Parental leave in Nordic countries, entitlements and the percentage of total number of benefit days used by fathers in 2007 44 2.4 Children aged 0 2 years and 3 6 years enrolled in daycare institutions and family daycare in the Nordic countries in 1984, shown as a percentage of all children in the age groups 49 2.5 Children aged 1 2 years and 3 5 years enrolled in daycare in the Nordic countries in 2006 2007, shown as a percentage of all children in the age groups 50 14.1 From favourable to unfavourable options following degrees and/or types of social investments (or corporal punishment of children) 267 vii

Preface This book is the final result of an interdisciplinary project conducted at the Norwegian Centre for Child Research in Trondheim, Norway. We are grateful to the Norwegian Research Council for having funded our project, The Modern Child and the Flexible Labour Market. Institutionalization and individualization of children s lives in modern welfare societies. The project commenced in 2004 and terminated in 2009 with a large international conference in Trondheim. As all the chapters in this book were written in 2008 and submitted for publication in 2009, information in some of them does not, understandably, take into consideration political and economic events that have taken place thereafter. On its way, the project has kindly been supported by an international group of renowned scholars in the field: Professor Guðný Björk Eydal, Faculty of Social Work, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland Associate Professor Eva Gulløv, Pedagogical University College, Copenhagen, Denmark Professor Gunilla Halldén, University of Linköping, Sweden Professor Michael-Sebastian Honig, University of Trier, Germany; now at the University of Luxembourg Professor Allison James, University of Sheffield, UK Professor Peter Moss, University of London, UK Associate Professor Harriet Strandell, University of Helsinki, Finland. We appreciate the commitment and encouragement from the international group, whose have members have with enthusiasm taken part in annual meetings for exchange and promotion of insight, ideas, discussions and inspiration on the issue of early childhood education and care. We want to thank the group and are pleased, not least, that most of its members have been able and willing to join in this last undertaking of the project, namely, writing a chapter for this book. Finally, we want to express our gratitude to Officer Manager Barbara Rogers and Senior Executive Officer Karin Ekberg for their experienced and qualified assistance in bringing the book safely over quite a few obstacles to, we hope, an interested readership. viii The editors

Notes on Contributors Berit Brandth is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway. Her research focuses on gender, work/family and welfare state policies. One central area of study has been fathers use of care policies to reconcile work and childcare. She is the author (with E. Kvande) of the book Flexible Fathers, and co-editor of Gender, Bodies and Work (2005) and Valgfrihetens tid. Omsorgspolitikk for barn i et fleksible arbeidsliv. Her research topics also include gender in agriculture- and forestry-based work, which she has studied through such inroads as technology, organization, family, body and the agricultural media. Guðný Björk Eydal is Professor in the Faculty of Social Work, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland. Her main research topics include the welfare state and policies on families and children, in particular childcare policies. She participates in REASSESS, the centre of excellence in welfare research. Among her recent publications are articles on childcare policies in the Nordic countries, Icelandic family policy, and children and the Nordic welfare states (e.g. Equal rights to earn and care, the case of Iceland (ed. with Gíslason); Social work and Nordic welfare policies for children present challenges in the light of the past 2008 with M. Satka, in European Journal of Social Work). Eva Gulløv is Associate Professor in the School of Education, University of Aarhus, Denmark. Her research concerns children s social relations, formations of identity and meaning within educational institutions, and processes of inclusion and exclusion related to children of ethnic minorities. Her recent publications include Institutional Upbringing: A Discussion of the Politics of Childhood in Contemporary Denmark 2008 (in James & James, European Childhoods); Targeting Immigrant Children 2008 (with H. Bundgaard in N. Dyck, Exploring Regimes of Discipline); Children of Different Categories 2006 (with H. Bundgaard in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies); and Children s Places: Cross-Cultural Perspectives 2003 (with K. F. Olwig). ix

x Notes on Contributors Gunilla Halldén is Professor in Child Studies at Linköping University, Sweden. She has carried out research on children s ideas about family life and on the role of preschool in children s everyday life. Her work deals with the construction of childhood in relation to gender issues and modernity. Her recent publications include Children s Narratives as Ways of Exploring Caring and Control, Power and Relationships in International Journal of Critical Psychology 2004 and Children s Strategies for Agency in Preschool in Children & Society 2008; and in Swedish, Den Moderna barndomen och barns vardagsliv 2007. Allison James is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Centre for the Study of Childhood & Youth at the University of Sheffield; Director of the Interdisciplinary Centre of the Social Sciences (ICOSS); and Professor II at the Norwegian Centre for Child Research, NTNU. As one of the pioneers of childhood studies she has carried out a wide range of empirical and theoretical research, most recently exploring children s perceptions of hospital space and children s perspectives on food. Author of numerous books and articles, her latest book is European Childhoods 2008 (with A. L. James). Birgitte Johansen, PhD, is based at the Norwegian Centre for Child Research, NTNU. Her fields of interest are work life studies, gender studies, family policy and welfare state studies as well as Foucauldian perspectives on government. She has published in Norwegian and international books and journals. Her recent publications include the article: Trick or Treat? Autonomy as Control 2005 (edited by R. Barret, in Management, Labour Process and Software Development) and in Norwegian: Fleksibilitet som utforderer til kvinners deltidsarbeid? 2007 (edited by E. Kvande and B. Rasmussen, in Arbeidslivets klemmer paradokser i det nye arbeidslivet). Anne Trine Kjørholt is Director of and Associate Professor at the Norwegian Centre for Child Research, NTNU. Her research fields include discourses on childhood and everyday life, including in African countries, children s rights and perspectives, citizenship, and early childhood education and care in a global perspective. Her publications include Global Childhoods: Globalization, Development and Young People 2008 (with S. Aitken and R. Lund); Flexible Childhood? Exploring Children s Welfare in Time and Space 2007 (with H. Zeiher, D. Devine and H. Strandell); Beyond Listening: Children s Perspectives in Early Childhood Services 2005 (with A. Clark and P. Moss).

Notes on Contributors xi Tora Korsvold was Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Centre for Child Research, NTNU, at the time of writing this chapter and is currently Professor at Queen Maud University College of Early Childhood Education (QMUC). Her main research fields are the history of welfare states and children, childhood and childcare in a historical perspective. During the years 2004 2011 she was a co-editor of the Nordic journal Barn. In 1998 she published her dissertation For alle barn. Barnehagen framvekst i velferdsstaten, which was reprinted in 2005 and 2008. Recent publications are Barns verdi (2006), Barn og barndom i velferdsstatens småbarnspolitikk (2008) and editor of Barndom. Barnehage. Inkludering (2011). Elin Kvande is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian Centre for Child Research, NTNU. Her research interests include work and organizations, gender studies, welfare state, and work and family. Her recent publications include Doing Gender in Flexible Organizations 2007; Gender, Bodies and Work 2005 (edited with D. Morgan and B. Brandth); Valgfrihetens Tid, Omsorgspolitikk for barn i et fleksible arbeidsliv 2005 (edited with B. Brandth and B. Bungum); and in 2009 Work-Life Balance for Fathers in Globalized Knowledge Work. Some Insights from the Norwegian Context in Gender, Work and Organization. Peter Moss is Professor at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London. His research interests include services for children, the workforce in these services, gender issues in work with children and the relationship between employment, care and gender, with a special interest in leave policies. Much of his work has been cross-national, especially within Europe. He currently edits a multinational and multi-lingual magazine Children in Europe; and co-ordinates an international network on leave policies and research. Recent books include Beyond Quality in Early Childhood Education and Care: Postmodern Perspectives 1999 (with G. Dahlberg and A. Pence); From Children s Services to Children s Spaces 2002 (with P. Petrie); Ethics and Politics in Early Childhood Education 2005 (by G. Dahlberg and P. Moss); Beyond Listening: Children s Perspectives on Early Childhood Services 2005 (with A. Clark and A.T. Kjørholt); and Care Work in Europe 2007 (with C. Cameron). Randi Dyblie Nilsen is Professor at the Norwegian Centre for Child Research, NTNU. She has carried out ethnographic research and published on several issues: children as social actors, everyday life and

xii Notes on Contributors space/place in family home and daycare centre settings, generational relations, constructions of child(hood), cultural (re)production, socialization, and methodological and theoretical issues. She currently leads the research project Day-care Centres in Transition. Inclusive Practices. A recent publication in English is Children in Nature: Cultural Ideas and Social Practices in Norway 2008 (in James & James, European Childhoods). Jens Qvortrup is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology and Political Science, NTNU; former Director of and, at the time of editing this work, Adjunct Professor at the Norwegian Centre for Child Research, NTNU. He directed the large international study Childhood as a Social Phenomenon (1987 1992). He was founding president of the International Sociological Association s section on sociology of childhood (1988 1998) and a co-editor of the Sage journal Childhood (1999 2008). He has published extensively in the field of childhood, including Childhood Matters 1994 (with M. Bardy, G. Sgritta and H. Wintersberger); Childhood and Children s Culture 2002 (with F. Mouritsen); Studies in Modern Childhood 2005; and Palgrave Handbook of Childhood Studies 2009 (with W. Corsaro and M. S. Honig). Minna Rantalaiho is Researcher at the Norwegian Centre for Child Research, NTNU, and the Nordic Gender Institute, Finland. Her research interests include Nordic welfare state and policy from different gender and/or childhood-related perspectives. Currently she is studying policy and practice of children s rights in the context of family change at NTNU, and the impact of gender-related organizing on women s social citizenship at the Nordic Gender Institute, Finland. Monica Seland was a PhD student at the Norwegian Centre for Child Research, NTNU, at the time of writing this chapter. She has ten years work experience in daycare centres, both as preschool teacher and manager. She is currently Associate Professor at Queen Maud University College of Early Childhood Education (QMUC), Faculty of Education. Her research interests include new discourses in Norwegian daycare policy and everyday life in daycare institutions. Her publications include her Master s thesis, Barnesamtalen: Narrative gruppeintervju med barn som en vei til medbestemmelse og nye erkjennelser i barnehagen (2004) and her PhD thesis, Det moderne barn og den fleksible barnehagen. En etnografisk studie av barnehagens hverdagsliv i lys av nyere diskurser og kommunal virkelighet (2009).

Notes on Contributors xiii Harriet Strandell is Associate Professor in the Department of Social Research, University of Helsinki, Finland. Her research interests are in institutional childhood, childhood space, governance and child politics. Her recent publications include Flexible Childhood? Exploring Children s Welfare in Time and Space 2007 (with H. Zeiher, D. Devine and A.T. Kjørholt), After-School Hours and the Meaning of Home. Re-defining Finnish Childhood Space 2007 in Children s Geographies (with H. Forsberg) and From Structure Action to Politics of Childhood Sociological Childhood Research in Finland in Current Sociology 2010.