A Critical Analysis of the Accountability Discourse in Early Years Education in England and Finland

Max, Anna (2024) A Critical Analysis of the Accountability Discourse in Early Years Education in England and Finland. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

In recent years early childhood education and care has become the focus of global political attention as an area of investment and concern. Measures of accountability have been introduced to ensure that “high quality” early years education produces children with the requisite skills and knowledge to enter formal education suitably prepared.

The primary aim of this thesis is to identify and analyse how the ideological and educational intentions of accountability policies of England and Finland (re)produce international and local discourses and their impact on the beliefs, attitudes and practices of practitioners. Most research has been concerned with the outcomes of early years education, concentrating on the oldest children, finding that developmentally driven practices produce normative narratives about (un)successful children, practitioners and settings. This research is situated in a post-structural theoretical framework of Foucauldian discourse analysis and Butler’s theory of performativity to interrogate how policy and hegemonic beliefs are used to mandate that practitioners subjectify themselves and the children to fulfil narrow constructions of practice and purpose. Ethnographically informed participant-observation and semi-structured interviews in six settings in England and Finland is used to explore how evaluation and inspection regimes and the practices associated with them are reproduced. Critical Discourse Analysis is used to explore how dominant discourses constitute children, practitioners and practice as normative or problematic within narrow, standardised boundaries.

The impact of the accountability discourse is felt at all levels of early years education, with children being prepared for future and school-readiness from babyhood. The domination of developmental discourses pathologises non-normative development, leading practitioners to implement measures not directly required in the evaluation/inspection frameworks including measuring children’s attainment in Finland and constituting Ofsted as an additional curriculum in England. I conclude that the accountability discourse imposes systematic disadvantage and requires challenge at policy and practice level.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Education and Lifelong Learning
Depositing User:	Chris White
Date Deposited:	13 Feb 2025 11:26
Last Modified:	13 Feb 2025 11:26
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/98460
DOI:

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