Globalisation and privatisation: The impact on childcare policy and practice
problem, issues such as such as school failure
custody and care of the children”. This criterion
or equal opportunities for women become
was then applied in all Belgian and French
decontextualised and made the responsibility
crèches (Vandenbroeck 2003). Another example
of individuals, absolving the state from making
is the rapid expansion of Bowlby’s attachment
investments in education.
theory since the 1950s through the popular publications of WHO. What is new is the
It should be noted that this devolution is not
scope and velocity by which these discourses
a unilateral initiative of the state towards the
travel through international conferences and
th
family or the childcare sector. Unlike the 19
organisations.
century and earlier, power is not confined to governments. Rather, this situation is a
So far we have described how globalisation has
reciprocal change in governance. In the 1980s
stimulated decentralisation and privatisation
childcare providers themselves acknowledged
of childcare services, emphasised the market
the role of the state, using essentially economic
value of the benefits of childcare, and placed the
arguments in the face of the threat of budget
burden of responsibility on parents. However,
cuts. It is also the childcare sector that
there is another element in the effects of
advocates participatory management and
globalisation that has not yet been described:
decentralisation, bringing decision-making to
the emergence of a range of childcare solutions
the local level. This is why decentralisation and
at the local level.
individual responsibility are to be understood as ‘discursive regimes’: ways of thinking
Furthermore, while the examples above show
that penetrate all levels of society and are so
general trends in European early childhood
taken for granted that they no longer require
service provision, it is important to note that
discussion. Discursive regimes are the result of
there are also counter-examples. For instance,
an equal combination of science, government
there is the recent massive investment in
policy and public opinion, and are linked with
childcare by the British government (Moss 2004),
‘travelling discourses’ – which in this case are
which takes into account accessibility of services
ideas and ways of understanding childhood,
for disadvantaged groups. This apparently
parenthood and early childhood policy that
contradicts the general trend of state withdrawal
‘travel’ across the globe, through international
and increased stress on the cost–benefit ratio.
organisations such as IMF, UNESCO and others,
Another example is the initiative of the Flemish
and the scientific community. Travelling
governmental organisation Kind en Gezin to
discourses are not new; in 1857 for instance a
fund community organisations in some deprived
European conference debated the accessibility
areas, which aims to bring a social and
of childcare provision and decided that “in all
educational focus to childcare instead of using
cases, the admission of children is subject to
an economic rationale. These examples indicate
the ascertained impossibility of the mother’s
that we should be careful when discussing the
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