The Norwegian Early Childhood Education and Care institution as a learning arena: autonomy and positioning of the pedagogic recontextualising field with the increase in state control of ECEC content

Abstract

When the responsibility for ECEC institutions was placed under Ministry of Education and Research in 2006, the ECEC institution as a learning area was brought in to the foreground in early education and care policy. Norwegian ECEC institutions have been subject to a greater degree of state control, and we can ask if the state is trying to undermine the profession’s autonomy through a strong degree of control over the content in education. This article is based on interviews with eight preschool teachers with long experience working in ECEC institutions. I will illuminate their subjective experiences of the ECEC institution as a learning arena for children, and discuss how they position themselves as agents due to a greater degree of state control. Thus, the relation between the pedagogic and the official recontextualising field will be discussed. Autonomy and the concept of framing will be central.

Keywords

• Early childhood education and care
• Bernstein
• learning
• framing
• profession
• autonomy
• positioning