Disrupting the Binaries That Frame the Neoliberal Kindergarten

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 4
  In Roundtable Session: The Neoliberal State: The Global Implications of Early Childhood Policies

Abstract

The narrative that kindergarten is the new first grade is pervasive. Education stakeholders are concerned that policymakers’ neoliberal education reforms have turned kindergarten into a learning environment that no longer nurtures children’s learning. However, many of these critiques of the changed kindergarten are rooted in a binary logic. This allows policymakers’ neoliberal reforms to remain intact. Through analyzing findings of a research study that examined how a range of education stakeholders made sense of the changed kindergarten through binary logic, we begin to pull apart these hierarchies of meaning, which privilege policymaker’s neoliberal reforms. Doing so provides insight into how this neoliberal logic may be disrupted.

Authors

• Christopher P. Brown, The University of Texas at Austin

• David Patrick Barry, West Chester University

• Da Hei Ku, The University of Texas at Austin

• Joanna Englehardt, San Francisco State University