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Abstract
In line with social studies of children and childhood, it is necessary to pay attention to local contextual understandings and practices in those places where constructions of children and childhood occur. The authors argue that the discourse of the competent child has become intertwined with a discourse of early intervention. In Norwegian day-care institutions, new practices of increased monitoring and evaluation of individual children have been observed. In this article, the authors explore day-care staff members’ descriptions of children who have not been formally diagnosed but who are positioned in between what is considered normal and deviating. While political documents stress the importance of early intervention and discovering special needs in the day-care setting, the authors suggest that this ‘discovery’ is context-bound, value-based and intertwined with ideas about children and childhood. From a study with day-care staff members, the following question is explored: ‘Which subject positions are present in day-care staff descriptions of children in between, and how do these positions legitimise the positioning of some children as deviating from perceived normality?’
Educational institutions have played, and continue to play, a significant role in normalising children (Foucault, 1977; James and James, 2004). This seems to be heightened when it comes to young children and early education and care (ECEC), which today is central on the national and international policy agenda – an agenda that is influenced by neo-liberal ideas (Ailwood, 2008; Kjørholt and Qvortrup, 2012). In recent political documents in Norway, the importance of ‘discovering’ special needs and carrying out early intervention is stressed (St.meld.nr. 16, 2006–2007; St.meld.nr. 18, 2010–2011). Accordingly, there is a growing tendency to monitor, evaluate and classify children in ECEC institutions (Andersen, 2009; Arnesen, 2012).1 Almost all Norwegian children (circa 90%) between one and five years of age attend day-care institutions (Statistics Norway, 2013), which makes them available to normalising processes and authorities. In Foucault’s (1977) terms, ECEC institutions become a ‘panopticon’, where children are progressively watched by a public regulative gaze. The regulative gaze of staff at day-care centres is crucial in these normalisation processes, as they are given the task of identifying ‘children at risk’ and ‘discovering’ children with special needs. From a critical perspective, we view this as a sorting process, where children are evaluated and positioned in a space of normality and deviance (Franck, 2014; Turmel, 2008). In this article, we will point to how such evaluations are context-bound in reference to how a ‘proper’ child subject is constructed in the institutional and cultural context (Alasuutari and Markström, 2011; Nilsen, 2008, 2012).
A discourse of the competent child has been fundamental and highly celebrated in the policies and practices, homes, schools and day-care institutions of Nordic countries (Brembeck et al., 2004). This child-centred discourse, traditionally emphasising children’s agency, rights and value in the present, has now in many ways become intertwined with an increased demand to monitor and govern individual children (Franck, 2014; Strandell, 2012). The discourse of the competent child, intertwined with a discourse of early intervention, has come to represent standards for children’s ‘normal’ capabilities. In this article, we explore descriptions of children who fail to meet certain expectations and standards of competency. We explore the following question: ‘Which subject positions are present in day-care staff descriptions of children in between, and how do these positions legitimise the positioning of some children as deviating from perceived normality?’ We illustrate how expectations and informal assessments of individual children are tied to an institutional context. We focus on day-care staff members’ descriptions of children who have not been formally diagnosed but who raise concern for possibly having special needs, and who thus are positioned in between what is considered normal and deviating. We aim to gain insight into which subject positions are present in these descriptions, and how these subject positions legitimise the positioning of children as deviating. We present an analysis based on fieldwork and interviews with 16 staff members at four day-care institutions in an effort to capture moments in the casual and informal evaluation practices that staff engage in as part of daily life in the institution.2 Departing from social studies of children and childhood, and mainly the branch of (de)constructive sociology of childhood (Alanen, 2001; Nilsen, 2003), we view children and childhood as socially constructed. We follow James and James (2004: 12), who encourage research to explore ‘the precise ways in which this occurs in any society and the specificity of the cultural context to that construction’. After outlining the theoretical framework and methodology, we examine the availability of certain subject positions in staff members’ descriptions – positions which, in turn, legitimise suspicions of some children as deviating. The focus of staff descriptions revolves around peer relations, practical tasks and the routines of the day-care institution.
Theoretical approach
In order to explore the space of normativity permeating the day-care institutional landscape, we adhere to the Foucauldian concept of discourse: a system of statements and practices that appear truthful and that contribute to the definition and production of particular cultural objects and subjects (Cavallaro, 2001; Foucault, 1982). Discourses construct what they set out to describe, and provide possibilities and limitations for what is considered acceptable and intelligible ways to talk, write and conduct ourselves (Hall, 2001). Childhood is understood as a cultural phenomenon that is constructed, formed and defined by discourses which produce a certain kind of knowledge about children (Kjørholt, 2004; Stainton Rogers and Stainton Rogers, 1998). Discourses have (implicit) disciplining power by means of defining what is deemed acceptable, desirable and normal (Foucault, 1999). Different discourses within a field are related in a variety of manners – they may be contradictory or intertwined, or they may overlap (Foucault, 1999). Truth and knowledge about children and childhood is, as such, constructed by a variety of discourses (Kjørholt, 2004). While a discourse delimits what it makes sense to say about, for instance, a child, people may resist, shift and mix discourses in a way that makes processes flexible and unpredictable (Henriques et al., 1998). Conflicting, overlapping and intertwining discourses are also apparent in the day-care field, as demonstrated in another article based on our study (see Franck, 2013). In this article, we present an analysis of practices that are framed by a discourse of the competent child, which currently seems to be intertwined with monitoring children for early intervention (Harrikari, 2004). This monitoring and push for early intervention is coloured by neo-liberal discourses, where children are on the agenda as investment in future citizens (Strandell, 2012).
In analysing conversations with staff members about informal practices of monitoring and categorising day-care children, we use the concept of subject positions, which conceptualises how discourses provide positions from which people locate each other or themselves (Henriques et al., 1998). Our study provides insights into how the staff within a normalising institution position children in a space between normality and deviance. Post-structuralist and feminist approaches have taken up the Foucauldian concept of ‘subject’ to move beyond an individualist perspective that implies a stable essential identity, and rather emphasise multiplicity and dynamism, where ‘the subject’ is seen as constructed through language, practices, politics and culture (Cavallaro, 2001; Foucault, 1982; Henriques et al., 1998). In line with a dynamic concept of the subject, we emphasise a relational perspective, opening for fluctuating subject positions. Walkerdine is among the pioneers of this framework, promoting
an approach which understands the discourses and practices through which subjectivities are produced in specific locations. … To understand the relation between subjectification (the condition of being a subject) and subjectivity (the lived experience of being a subject), it is necessary to examine what subject-positions are created within specific practices and how actual subjects are both created and live those diverse positions. (Walkerdine, 2005: 149–150)
This study focuses on exploring which subject positions are created for children by adults.3 Staff members are in a powerful position to define, pinpoint and act on children (Wilhelmsen and Nilsen, 2015). We are concerned with the particular subject positions that are available in day-care centres in the Norwegian cultural and political context. Conditions of being child subjects within an institution are connected to and influenced by the prominence of discourses. These discourses create certain subject positions for children and, to us, it is of great significance to explore this.
Methods
This article is based on a study in which semi-structured interviews with staff members and participant observations were carried out in four Norwegian day-care institutions (cf. Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007; Kvale and Brinkmann, 2009).4 Sixteen staff members participated; some worked in units for children aged three to six and others in units for children aged one to three. In the interviews, the staff members were encouraged to describe and reflect on children who had raised concerns because of their conduct and demeanour. In an attempt to produce inspiring dialogues with detailed stories and unfinished reflections (see Søndergaard, 1999), they were asked to elaborate on and offer examples of everyday experiences. Three months of fieldwork in the same units supplements the interview data for a richer context and understanding. The day-care staff comprised preschool teachers, teacher assistants (with and without relevant education) and special needs teachers.
In analysing the field notes on staff members’ everyday talk, informal discussions and the interview data, we searched for what is included and excluded (see Søndergaard, 2002) when a child is positioned in the space between what is perceived as normal and deviant. The analysis presented below illustrates what subject positions are at play when staff members describe children who raise concerns and become positioned in between normality and deviance, and, further, how certain subject positions legitimise staff members’ concerns. In the analysis, we have included selected excerpts that are particularly fruitful for illustrating and discussing our analytical points (for further information on methods, see Franck, 2014).
A ‘normal’ day-care child as ‘a competent participant in the collective’
As a vital pillar in the Nordic version of the competent child discourse, the social child has been a recurrent and dominant subject position (Brembeck et al., 2004). Our study adds to other Nordic research in an ECEC context, confirming that such a construction pervades traditional and contemporary ideas of a ‘proper child’ subject (for example, the study by Alasuutari and Markström, 2011). Alasuutari and Markström sum up their overall results of what makes up an ordinary child in Finnish and Swedish ECEC institutions as follows:
the child’s social behavior and adjustment are emphasized. The basic elements of the institutional order are very much about being in a social system and becoming its member – following its core rules and traditions. In addition, the assumptions about favoring the company of peers and about being an active participant in the preschool class reveal an expectation of a socially skilled child who is a competent participant in the collective. (Alasuutari and Markström, 2011: 531)
We should note that research in Norway and Denmark adds to this conclusion (e.g. Gilliam and Gulløv, 2012; Korsvold, 1998). The strong emphasis on the notion of the social child and on peer relations (including, but not limited to, play) is key to constructions of a ‘proper child’ subject in the Norwegian/Nordic context. Its taken-for-grantedness is guiding prevailing normativities (Alasuutari et al., 2014). Further, being a social, competent participant in a collective implies physical independence and self-control, demonstrating a positive attitude towards the day-care institution while adjusting to a generational order, and following its core rules and norms. However, as we will illustrate, not all children are considered socially competent and, based on their conduct, these children become a matter of concern. Thus, we pose the following question: ‘Which subject positions are made available and how do these positions legitimise constructions of some children as potentially deviating?’
Subject positions legitimising constructions of children as potentially deviating
Socially incompetent and child subject as a risk
The emphasis on social competence and peer interaction is stated in the 2011 national pedagogical Framework Plan for the Content and Tasks of Kindergartens. Further, it is evident in the way time and space are organised, and the daily practices among children and adults (Nilsen, 2000). In the following interview excerpt, a staff member describes concerns about a four-year-old boy who breaks with expected normality in peer interactions. First, she recounts that the day-care centre has not received any reports or diagnoses for the boy, but that they wonder about his behaviour:
We do not know what it is, but we sort of know that there is something.
Yes. What do you react to?
Well, it’s sort of behavioural, I guess.
Yes.
There are some language issues and such … but … [I] can say we, we react because, ’cause it isn’t … normal behaviour really, right?
If I had arrived at the unit, in what way would I have noticed?
[He] likes to confront other children, related to making noises and – la la la la la la.
I see.
[He] goes up to other children so that they’ll get irritated and angry … pushing and shoving.
Okay.
You cannot trust him because, if he has a stone, like, then there is no hindrance to hit or throw it. Right?
No.
So he has to be watched very carefully.
In this extract, the staff member is constructing the boy as socially incompetent to the extent that his behaviour is defined as ‘not normal’, which is based on him interacting in a socially unacceptable way: he annoys and provokes other children verbally and physically. Further, the boy is described as lacking the required self-control. Although staff members are around, children are expected to self-govern their activities with limited adult interference. Nevertheless, free play might be seen as being imbued with what Foucault (1977) theorised as panopticism (Nilsen, 2000). An adult presence contributes to social order and the regulation of children’s conduct. The adult/professional gaze is a well-known (though often tacit) surveillance practice in educational institutions. Being watched might serve to discipline children’s bodies and voices, producing proper child subjects who adapt to dominating expectations. However, in relation to the boy, who is described as not living up to norms of peer interaction and self-control, the staff member states that ‘he has to be watched very carefully’ – in contrast to ‘normally’ behaving children who manage self-control and self-government. As a normalising discourse, the competent child sets a standard for ordinary day-care children to be self-governed and independent child subjects (see Alasuutari and Markström, 2011; Nilsen, 2008). However, such a subject position does not seem to be available for the boy in question, at least not at the time of the interview. Rather, a dependent child subject is presented, which forges an adult practice of close surveillance in order to prevent possible harmful acts like hitting or throwing stones at the ‘ordinary’ children.
We might ask if the composition of a child positioned as dependent, socially incompetent and lacking self-control constructs a child subject who is a threat, the kind of dangerous child highlighted in historical research – in contemporary language, we might express this as a child who is not only ‘at risk’, but also ‘a risk’ (Read, 2011). This is illuminated most concretely in the final utterances in the above excerpt: ‘You cannot trust him because, if he has a stone, like, then there is no hindrance to hit or throw it. Right? … So he has to be watched very carefully’. In Norway, the use of stones and other natural materials is appreciated, and children are expected to handle these with care. There is a concern for physical harm and injuries.5 However, we will suggest that the perceived threat associated with a child subject who is viewed as socially incompetent in peer relations is of equal importance. Thereby, the harmonious social order in the day-care centre might be at risk, as peer relations and play initiated and managed by children are highly valued by both children and staff.
A child located in a subject position of risk legitimises staff concerns and constructs that child as potentially deviating from what is considered normal. Being constructed as deviating exceeds the context of peer relations, for it may establish a fixed identity for the individual. As mentioned, the staff member shares that there is no diagnosis for the boy. However, the potential for this child to qualify for special educational needs and early intervention is considered high. We should note that the staff member does not mention the peer context or other circumstances that might impact the child’s behaviours (Hjörne and Säljö, 2004). In the interview, the boy can be seen as ‘othered’ and described by negative characteristics, thus being essentialised as ‘not normal’.
While a subject position of the social child permeates the normativity of the day-care setting, other elements of what is considered a competent child subject were also at play when the day-care staff explained why they were concerned for a child. Below, we explore further how staff members explain their concerns in reference to children who fail to meet the expectations of an independent and compliant child subject.
Dependent and passive child subject
During the interviews, the day-care staff would frequently mention children’s inability to manage practical tasks as a main concern related to ‘normal’ development. The staff members would question and discuss mobility and physical skill as part of the reason why a child deviated from what was considered normal. As pointed out by Alasuutari et al. (2014: 85), a proper and ‘normal’ Nordic day-care child is supposed to ‘[s]how independence and control by managing her/his body’. We direct attention here to how the staff members’ gaze constructs children’s bodies as objects to be assessed, which may legitimise a need for early intervention. Some staff members would explain their concerns for a child by describing how s/he could not manage to climb up onto chairs or into strollers, or eat without making a mess. In such instances, a child risked being constructed as deviating from the other children due to a lack in physical efficiency and mobility. Some staff members discussed how some children were coddled by their parents and commented on how this had negative effects on a child’s development:
He was two years old this summer. So he’s nearly two and a half.
Yes.
And he’s spoon-fed.
Yes.
Usually, if it’s porridge and such things. If it’s bread, then they [the parents] put tiny pieces of bread in his mouth. [The parents] even lift his glass when he is going to drink no less – so one could just be a nestling then … What I think has become more and more the last few years, and ends up badly affecting the child’s development, it can be a bit like, now we have several [children] that I might want to call under-stimulated … children who are carried till they’re two years old – who are lifted up and down from chairs, sofas, in and out of cars.
Despite vast differences in parenting practices, the image of an independent child subject who displays competence during practical tasks can be seen as part of a normalising discourse against which (parenting) practices may be evaluated. Parenting practices such as those described above stand in direct contrast to common day-care practices, which strongly encourage the independence of children: handling social and practical situations with minimum help, and staff avoid lifting or carrying children (Nilsen, 2008). There is a sense of children being evaluated in terms of well-disciplined and efficient bodies (see Foucault, 1977). Through the invisible power of disciplinary technologies, their bodies are created as objects to be moulded (Cannella, 1999). The excerpt above illustrates a manner in which a subject position as dependent and passive is frowned upon in the institutional setting, and legitimises concerns for children within a discourse that constructs ‘normal’ children as competent and independent. Gullestad (1997: 32) points out that ‘independence has long been a key notion with much rhetorical force in the upbringing of children, as well as in many other contexts in Norway’.
Dependency as lack of physical control and inability to perform practical tasks is different from the example of the boy positioned as dependent on adult surveillance in peer relations. However, both examples illustrate how positions of dependency legitimise constructions of children as deviating within a discourse of competence that values independency as ‘normal’ and as a standard against which children are evaluated. We would like to point out that children being able to fend for themselves to a certain degree is also related to the demands of a well-functioning institution (see Alasuutari and Markström, 2011; Gilliam and Gulløv, 2012). The resources and number of adults in a day-care unit may be limited, thus children being able to self-manage is crucial to the day-care institution’s functioning. Nevertheless, as we will discuss next, staff expectations of children’s conduct are not static – they change, depending on the immediate situation within the day-care context.
Immature or disordered child subject
While independence is highly valued within the day-care context, in some situations children are expected to be compliant, flexible and responsive to adult guidance (Alasuutari et al., 2014). With changes in activities, place or social composition, children are expected to be flexible and (learn how to) handle daily transitions easily (Brown, 2007). In our study, this was illustrated as staff members pointed to children’s problematic behaviour during transitions. In the following excerpt, a staff member refers to such situations:
He has behaviour that we wonder about. Yes … One might think: Are there some autistic traits here, or is it something else? Or is it just that he is immature in some aspects? We don’t know.
Where – in what situations do you notice it?
But it is like he … what is difficult for him is all transition situations.
Yes.
Then he yells. He yells intensely.
I see.
Yes. And he can act out. He pushes and pinches and yells, using his yelling immensely.
The boy is described as a child yelling and acting out physically, thus breaking with expectations of proper and normal child conduct as compliant and flexible in transition situations. He is also described as breaking norms of self-control and expressing feelings in an acceptable verbal manner. The boy is not constructed as a ‘normal’ competent child – available for this boy are subject positions of either having a disorder (autistic traits) or being immature. A proper day-care child is considered to follow staff members’ instructions and guidance, and adjust to the institutional order (Alasuutari et al., 2014). This excerpt implicitly demonstrates expectations of compliance to adult guidance and institutional routines. This indicates a shift away from expectations of independence and the previous examples, in which dependency on adults was frowned upon, and illustrates how children’s independence is limited within the specific institutional order (Kampmann, 2004). Nonetheless, self-control is a key notion in what is considered to be a competent child (Alasuutari et al., 2014; Brembeck et al., 2004). While self-control during transitions is tied to compliance, in other daily situations it is tied to self-government and independence.
Looking at the various situations in the day-care context, one can detect how competence is firmly tied to the demands of the institutional order, becoming a member of a social system and following its rules, and the fluidity of daily routines. However, context and situational circumstances are not taken into consideration when children are described by referring to developmental immaturity and/or diagnostic labels. In the excerpt above, the staff member draws on a medical/diagnostic discourse (Holt, 2003), in which the boy is positioned in a subject position of potentially having a disorder. As an alternative, she also questions whether the boy’s behaviour is the result of immaturity, and thus possibly normal but still incompetent within a development discourse (Henriques et al., 1998). Immaturity, while also considered undesirable, does imply the possibility of the child maturing and becoming more flexible and compliant with time. However, a subject position of a child with a disorder or as immature both decontextualises a child’s behaviour and facilitates understandings of the individual as inherently different and deviating from other children. It also limits the space for alternative understandings of children’s behaviour and the subject positions made available for them. The behaviour of the boy in the above excerpt is, for instance, not seen as a form of resistance or non-compliance to the routines and schedule of the day-care centre. Thus, a subject position of a competent child expressing agency through resistance does not become available for this boy (Nilsen, 2000, 2009).
Concluding remarks
In this article, we have explored which subject positions are present for children in between and how these positions legitimise positioning some of these children as deviant from what is considered ‘normal’ in Norwegian day-care institutions. A discourse of the competent child has come to impose particular competences of children in the context of Nordic day-care institutions (Ellegaard, 2004). We argue that this is occurring within a framework in which the competent child discourse has become intertwined with evaluations, assessments, and ‘discoveries’ of potential deviations in children (e.g. special needs) and early interventions (see Strandell, 2012). While the competent child discourse is focused on children as competent actors per se, our study reinforces the need for caution. We have illustrated how this discourse contributes to the production of subject positions of deviance within the current political landscape. The emphasis on early intervention requires a sorting process, in which some children become ‘othered’.
In the analysis, we have emphasised the presence of subject positions that legitimise constructions of deviance. As illustrated, when not living up to certain standards of social competence, a boy becomes constructed as either at risk or being a risk, as well as positioned as dependent on adult surveillance. A dependent child subject and a child as a risk can be seen as legitimising staff concerns and as contributing to the construction of the child as deviating. Further, in other daily situations, subject positions as dependent and passive also contribute to concerns and construct deviance in relation to standards of independency and physical skill. However, children’s independency is limited, as the final part of the analysis illustrates, in reference to children who do not comply with the rules, norms and practices of the generational and institutional order in an ECEC context. Subject positions of having a disorder or being immature legitimise concerns of deviance when children resist transitions. While we argue that the context of the day-care unit as an institution is highly relevant for the manner in which some children are constructed as deviating, day-care staff practices and evaluations are directed at the individual child and her/his perceived inherent lack of competence or skill. Hence, the individual child is essentialised as flawed. This separates the conduct of children from the context in which it occurs, and we suggest that such an understanding relies on a conceptualisation of a unitary and static individual (Henriques et al., 1998). Alternatively, one can understand children’s actions and conduct as entangled and inseparable from context, which emphasises a more relational perspective, in which children (and adults) are understood as non-static and as being able to shift between positions of context-bound competence and incompetence (Kjørholt, 2005; Lee, 1999; Prout, 2005). In other words, a conceptualisation of shifting subject positions (Henriques et al., 1998) in diverse situations and contexts opens up new understandings and reflections, which might benefit both children and the adults who work with them, as well as policymakers and the research community.
Funding
This research was funded by the Norwegian Research Council.
Notes
1.
We use ‘day-care institutions’ and ‘ECEC institutions’ interchangeably, which both translate as barnehager in Norwegian.
2.
The practices of formal evaluations and testing in the day-care institutions are explored in another article from our study (see Franck, 2013).
3.
While we are aware that children also position themselves and participate in reproducing discourses and institutions (Markström and Halldén, 2009; Nilsen 2008, 2012).
4.
By Karianne Franck (2014) as part of the research project ‘Children with (dis)abilities: Practices and values in Norwegian day-care centres’, directed by Randi Dyblie Nilsen, and located in the Norwegian Centre for Child Research at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).
5.
However, this concern is stronger in other cultural contexts, such as in the United Kingdom (James and James, 2008).
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Author biographies
Karianne Franck is an Associate Professor at Queen Maud University College of Early Childhood Education, Trondheim. She has a PhD from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norwegian Centre for Child Research. Her research interests include day-care centres, constructions of children and childhood, normality, special needs and disability.
Randi Dyblie Nilsen is a professor at the Norwegian Centre for Child Research, NTNU. She has carried out ethnographic research in Norwegian day-care centres and published on theoretical and methodological issues in social studies of children and childhood, and lectures and supervises MPhil and PhD students.
