Learning,development and the early childhood curriculum: A critical discourse analysis of the Early Years Foundation Stage in England

Abstract

This article focuses on the national policy framework for early childhood education (birth to 5 years) in England – the Early Years Foundation Stage, specifically the use of child development theories as the underpinning knowledge base for practice. The aim is to understand what constructions of learning and development are foregrounded in policy, and their implications for curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. Critical Discourse Analysis methods are used to expose learning and development as messy constructs, and to propose three arguments. First, the evidence base for the Early Years Foundation Stage relies on selective appropriation of child development theories, and findings from government-funded research. These sustain normative discourses, reflecting a Piagetian ontology of ‘development leads learning’, through which children become ‘knowable’ and ‘measurable’. Second, the Early Years Foundation Stage shifts from developmental processes to learning outcomes as the basis for constructing curriculum, assessment of children’s outcomes and school readiness. Third, the Early Years Foundation Stage constitutes a discursive regime, which influences how practitioners must fulfil performance criteria that serve multiple purposes of assessing outcomes, evaluating standards and defining ‘quality’. From a critical perspective, this analysis questions the efficacy of the Early Years Foundation Stage in addressing the problems of equity and inclusion in diverse societies. The Early Years Foundation Stage exemplifies the policy technologies that can be discerned in international contexts, through which specific forms of curriculum coherence and control are produced. An alternative ‘learning leading development’ onto-epistemology is proposed, which offers potential for challenging the (il)logic of the Early Years Foundation Stage.

Keywords

child development critical discourse analysis curriculum learning pedagogy policy

Introduction

In many international contexts, early childhood education (ECE) continues to be informed by child development theories, which constitute an eclectic body of knowledge, drawing on contrasting disciplines and methodologies (Bartholomaeus, 2016; Wood and Hedges, 2016). How these theories were interpreted during the 20th century emphasised the child’s natural/biological development, and aligned with child-centred principles about learning through play, discovery and exploration, and with developmentally appropriate practice (Copple and Bredekamp, 2009). Shaping children’s development through home, community and education contexts reflected socio-economic shifts towards shared responsibilities between (private) family life and (public) state investment in ECE. Child development theories thus became the ontological and epistemological meta-narrative guiding provision, because they provided a scientific basis for child-rearing, childcare and health. Many theorists followed Piaget’s ‘ages and stages’ conceptualisation of cognitive development and learning, focusing on the developmental domains (physical, cognitive, socio-affective), and subject areas – notably literacy, science and mathematics. In contemporary international contexts of policy intensification, child development theories have provided a scientific basis for how curriculum frameworks can be organised. However, contemporary research questions the efficacy and appropriateness of these normative theories in complex and diverse societies. These trends highlight the significance of analysing how policy texts are formulated as a means of communicating intentions and, in the example of England, determining ECE curriculum, pedagogy and assessment practices.

The first two sections examine the legacy of developmental theories, and the ways in which learning and development are understood from contrasting theoretical orientations. The following section justifies the use of critical discourse analysis (CDA) in examining the content of three interrelated texts that construct learning and development in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). Following this analysis, it is proposed that learning and development in the EYFS are messy constructs that exemplify the problems of how theories become inscribed in policy discourses, for what purposes, and with what effects. This analysis reflects international trends towards instrumental and standardised approaches to curriculum, the micro-level regulation of practitioners and children through macro-level policy technologies, and the challenges of knowledge transfer between theory, policy and practice (Lowenstein, 2011; McShane, 2016).

Developmentalism in ECE

Policy frameworks reflect the international influence of child development theories as the foundational professional knowledge for ECE. These theories have created a regime of truth (Bartholomaeus, 2016; Walkerdine, 1984), based on a heterogeneous body of knowledge incorporating the developmental domains, and the subject disciplines as the basis for curriculum. The selective use of child development theories reflects both their scientific appeal to policy makers, and their historical significance within the canon of professional knowledge. Developmental research identifies transitions, and their causes, specifically how small steps lead to incremental changes in behaviour, conceptual knowledge, competencies and skills, and the ways in which different areas of development become coordinated and integrated over time and in different contexts (Pellegrini, 2011; Pino-Pasternak and Whitebread, 2019). In a review of research in the developmental domains, Goswami (2015) presents consensus and controversies, notably the move from Piagetian ‘ages and stages’ towards more nuanced ways of understanding children as social actors and the influence of social, cultural, material and digital contexts. Focusing on the implications of child development theories for pedagogy and curriculum, Hatch (2010) challenges the overemphasis on children’s development and relative inattention to their learning, specifically the Piagetian concept of development as the prerequisite for learning. Taking the example of learning to read, Wyse and Goswami (2008) argue that child development theories alone cannot prescribe pedagogical practices and curriculum design. This is because developmental processes are not consistently hierarchical, linear, causal or deterministic; transitions vary in their timing, and cultural approaches to learning are situated in different socio-historical contexts (Chen et al., 2011; Guttiérez and Rogoff, 2003). Moreover, there is a ‘close coupling’ between learning-relevant capacities (such as affect, motivation, interest, working memory, self-regulatory and metacognitive strategies, play, imagination, pretence), curriculum content – what is being learned, children’s identities and their diverse lifeworlds.

The epistemological hierarchy of child development theories is contested internationally, informed by post-developmental critique of normative ways of understanding and positioning children, with a focus on contesting the efficacy and appropriateness of these theories in research (Bartholomaeus, 2016), in policy (Wild et al., 2015) and in complex and diverse societies (Hatch, 2010). Post-developmental critique argues that the scientific methods used in developmental psychology tend to describe domain-specific mechanisms and processes, but do not explain the variations that lie in wider dimensions and intersections of diversities, such as cultures, ethnicities, languages, gender, dis/abilities, sexualities and social class. In the context of critical disability studies, Goodley and Runswick-Cole (2012) argue that some psychological knowledges threaten to essentialise and pathologise difference within children, and leave untouched wider questions of cultures and societies that fail to tolerate difference. In addition, cultural repertoires (Rogoff, 2008) reflect the diverse ways in which children construct their unique personalities, dispositions and identities in different contexts:

The direction of development varies locally (in accord with cultural values, interpersonal needs, and specific circumstances); it does not require the specification of universal, or ideal points of development. (Rogoff, 2008: 68)

The concept of ‘repertoires’ reflects a theoretical shift away from individual pathways of development to the significance for learning of social relationships, collective activities, cultural tools and home-based as well as institutional practices. In contrast with Piagetian orientations, Hatch (2010) argues that a learning leading development ontology provokes different questions and has different implications for practice.

Given the tensions identified in post-developmental critique, and international policy interventions in ECE, learning and development are central to questions about what forms of knowledge are valued, how these can be arranged as curriculum content, and how coherence can be achieved through arrangements such as pedagogy and assessment practices (Wood and Hedges, 2016). The following section argues that theories of learning and development derive from contrasting onto-epistemological positions, which questions the existing hierarchy in ECE, as well as norms, values and power relations.

Learning and development

Theories of development are concerned with what the child is doing, or what children are like, at particular stages, based on natural/biological processes, the interactions between biology, maturation, environment and experience, and how developmental processes are typically organised and sequenced. Stages, milestones or norms indicate the ages at which children (should) demonstrate new capacities and abilities, and are used differently in education, health and social care to construct developmental pathways. From this perspective, development leads learning, and must be supported in developmentally appropriate ways. These discursive constructions also define ways of being a baby, toddler, pre-schooler, pupil, and constitute a means by which children are normalised or abnormalised in relation to developmental checks, curriculum goals and standards. In contrast, from post-developmental perspectives, such constructions are problematic because

There is no single correct response to the question of what curriculum content and which instructional practices are developmentally appropriate for an individual child, a certain classroom full of students, a particular school setting, or a specific sociocultural context: every question has many possible answers. (Goldstein, 2008: 257)

Similarly, Hatch (2012) argues that

Curriculum content, the substance of early childhood education, cannot logically be identified based on knowledge of child development theory: that is, figuring out what subject matter knowledge should be taught does not follow from understandings of what children are like at particular ages and stages. (p. 46)

Theories of learning are consistent with a liberal-humanist view that ECE should focus on who the child is ‘becoming’, that is on things that can be changed or influenced through social and institutional practices. Holzman (2009: 18) proposes a dialectical unity between being/becoming, informed by Vygotskian socio-cultural theories in which learning leads development: children develop by being able to do what is beyond them, and to perform who they are becoming. As Hatch (2010) has argued, these processes are dynamic and child-centred in that children actively influence their own and each other’s learning and development. They are supported within developmental environments through their interactions with peers, adults, tools, artefacts and materials, and through play. From a socio-cultural perspective, human beings are agentic because they are constantly

reshaping the very environments that determine them, performing who they are becoming, creating culture and transforming the world. The ‘products’ of this activity are not outcomes, but part of the unity that is ‘process and product’ or ‘tool and result’. (Holzman, 2009: 20)

Cognition, affect and imagination are part of this unity. Thus learning and development are not only a technical matter of behavioural, conceptual or skills-based acquisition: children create their identities and capabilities through extended repertoires of participation in new, and more complex social situations for development, using different forms of cultural knowledge, and performing with increasing agency, expertise and control.

Given these contrasting onto-epistemological orientations, it is argued that problems arise when the scientific rationale of child development theories meets ideologically framed policy logic in order to create curriculum norms and standards against which children are positioned as typical or atypical, normal or abnormal, in credit or in deficit, often with insufficient attention to difference and diversities. Consistent with Hatch (2012) and Goldstein (2008), Popkewitz (2009) proposes that policies are socially constructed systems of ideas and reason:

there is nothing natural about, for example, ‘seeing’ the child through conceptions of childhood, stages of growth, and development, or to order school subjects such as literacy, science, and art as processes of problem-solving, or as communities of learners. (p. 303)

Furthermore, policy versions of developmentalism have been over-simplified, and rarely distinguish between theories that derive from developmental, cultural, behavioural, psychodynamic and educational psychology. As a result, developmentalism has not adequately accounted for the influence and complexity of culturally influenced repertoires for learning. This is a significant distinction because there is substantial evidence that children not only engage with the knowledge around which curriculum content is framed, but use varied sources of knowledge to inform how they experience and build curriculum (Hill and Wood, 2019). The complexity of these contrasting perspectives demands a problem-driven approach to policy analysis, in order to understand what interpretations of learning and development are used in the EYFS, specifically the links between broad developmental descriptors and prescribed learning goals. The following section justifies the use of CDA to understand these interpretations.

Critical discourse analysis

CDA locates discourse as a form of social practice. Building on early iterations of CDA, Fairclough et al. (2004) argue that people ‘organise and act through particular discourse . . . and the myriad “reform packages” put forward at every level of social organisation are all discourses that specify ways of interacting’ (p. 2, emphasis in original). Souto-Manning (2014) draws attention to discourse encompassing values and beliefs, and because ‘social actions become realities through discourse, we cannot ignore the role of discourse in trying to understand complex relationships involving social interactions, structures, systems, and everyday lives’ (p. 160). CDA also aims to understand how discourses seek to persuade audiences of particular positions based on ideas and ideologies, their wider systems of reference, and their power effects, as well as raising important questions about the relationship between language and political ideology, and the ways in which discourse can reproduce social and political ideology (Wild et al., 2015: 242). Linking CDA and critical policy studies draws attention to the discursive (semiotic or linguistic) character of policy, policy making and policy analysis (Fairclough, 2013: 177), thus shifting the focus to the policy intentions and the ways in which language and concepts are used produce the desired or required outcomes. CDA offers the methodological means for identifying ideological assumptions, power and the effects of power, specifically what counts as valued or legitimate knowledge (Fairclough, 2013), and from whose perspectives. In education, these effects are expressed in textual discourses (including words, symbols and visual images) that define domains of knowledge, in the technical structures of policies, and the practices or systems through which policies are applied.

CDA aims to reveal and critique the political, social, discursive, and material effects of social policies, by combining analysis of the language used, with key questions to interrogate texts, to identify how socially constructed systems have evolved, who is recruited into their maintenance and promulgation, and who, or what is silenced. The concern with power effects is significant because policy problems and their solutions should not be taken as given, and, as Fairclough (2013) has argued, CDA provokes fundamental questions about whether the problems exist, how they are constructed and by whom, and how they are used to justify a particular solution. This is an important point because contemporary ECE policies tend to combine a sense of crisis with aspirational and deficit discourses, in order to create solutions and increase regulation. In England, the crisis is that practitioners have not sufficiently raised children’s outcomes and life chances, or improved their school readiness. The aspirational EYFS policy discourse aims to address these problems, especially for children considered ‘disadvantaged’, and to raise overall quality. Central to this analysis is the macro-political influence of neo-liberalism, which has yoked ECE to economic discourses of human capital and competitiveness in the global economy, where the educational ‘performance’ of children predicts their later productivity, and where standards, effectiveness and quality, improvement and accountability are intertwined means for regulating practitioners. Persuasive policy discourses are evident in many international contexts, where similar political ideologies prevail. Focusing on Australia, Hunkin (2018, 2019) contests the uses and misuses of discourses of quality as a key trope in the ECE reform agenda, specifically the governance of human capital. Utilising Foucauldian approaches to discourse analysis, Hunkin (2018: 452) argues that the neo-liberal approach to quality reform does not necessarily improve the capacities of the sector to enact selective notions of quality. Similarly, Wild et al. (2015) question the efficacy of top-down regulation and inspection for driving changes in qualifications and professional knowledge. How curricula might be conceptualised and enacted remains the focus of international debates as ECE continues to expand (Hatch, 2012; Wood and Hedges, 2016), and has to earn its place within education systems by demonstrating economic and educational effectiveness. Accordingly, this analysis makes an original contribution and addition to the growing literature on policy research in ECE.

The following analysis aims to provide an explanatory critique which does not simply describe and evaluate existing realities but seeks to explain them (Fairclough, 2013: 178). The texts selected for analysis exemplify the influence of child development theories, the discursive formulations of learning and development, and the construction of learning goals in the EYFS. The texts are not presented as a linear or logical sequence, but rather as a policy assemblage that reveals shifts in emphasis according to changing government rationalities and the socio-historical contexts of their production. Although there are intertextual references, CDA exposes the assertive claims of ‘evidence-based’ policy, because of the selective use and interpretations of evidence and the circular discourses created within and across texts. Reference is made to related texts to show the intensification of ECE policy in England from 2009 onwards. The term ‘practitioner’ is used to include all adults who work with children in ECE settings.

The following analysis of the texts focuses on the following three questions:

How are the concepts of learning and development presented and understood in the EYFS?

How are the concepts of learning and development used in the EYFS?

What theories, values and priorities are conveyed in these texts?

Strategic key word analysis was used in the first instance, by paying attention to the frequency of words, specifically ‘learning and development’ and the concepts to which they were attached. This was achieved used by searching ‘learning’, ‘development’, ‘learning and development’ across the three texts and noting where they occur, and the ideas to which they related (e.g. ‘best practice’ and ‘healthy development’). Attention was paid to the authoritative language of the texts, including their declarative, epistemic and persuasive features. Second, the focus shifted to how those concepts have been used in the EYFS to construct a development leading learning ontology and epistemology. This required constant comparison across the texts, using analytical notes and concept maps to reveal the ways in which normative child development theories construct the ‘EYFS child’, and the recommended approaches to pedagogy, curriculum and assessment. Specific attention was given to the EYFS policy fabrications in which developmental pathways become learning outcomes. Third, consistent with CDA principles, there is an explanatory critique of the theories, values and priorities in these texts, and the implications for children’s subjectivities in relation to curriculum, pedagogy and assessment.

How are the concepts of learning and development presented and understood in the EYFS?

In 2011, Dame Clare Tickell was commissioned to chair a review of the existing EYFS (Department for Children Schools Families (DCSF), 2008), leading to an independent report and recommendations (DfE, 2011a, 2011b). The review was informed by the government-commissioned ‘Early Years Learning and Development Literature Review’ (EYLDR; Evangelou et al., 2009) which was intended to update the knowledge on which the revised EYFS would be based. The review (DfE, 2011a, 2011b) and government response (DfE, 2012a) drew on government-funded research projects, with selected findings from the Effective Provision for Preschool and Primary Education (EPPPE; Sylva et al., 2004) being particularly influential. The EPPPE studies and the EYLDR contributed significantly to the review, because they addressed the ‘problems’ that were identified in policy discourses, and produced the knowledge that informed the solutions.

Focusing first on the EYLDR, the terms of reference specify the following three models of development: constructivist, interactionist and neuropsychological, with an emphasis on Vygotskian theories in the interactionist tradition (Evangelou et al., 2009: 2). The epistemic nature of this text is critical and evaluative. The influence of socio-cultural and ecological theories is acknowledged (Evangelou et al., 2009: 2), specifically the impact of social contexts on learning and development. The authors question a linear model of progression in learning because of its tendency to ‘simplify and . . . homogenise development’ (Evangelou et al., 2009: 29), and acknowledge that cultural contexts influence learning trajectories, including the nature of child-adult engagement (Evangelou et al., 2009: 59). The EYLDR emphasises culture and cultural interactions as located within the wider developmental eco-system, beginning with children’s home and family experiences and extending into pre-school where ‘It is important for settings to recognise and nurture these different repertoires’ (Evangelou et al., 2009: 81–82). The EYLDR and EPPPE findings provided an empirical rationale for the revised EYFS areas of learning. However, while attention is given to the influence of culture and cultural contexts, the subtleties of these theories did not consistently percolate subsequent iterations of the EYFS.

How are the concepts of learning and development used in the EYFS?

Child development theory is recognised as foundational professional knowledge for policy and practice: ‘Best practice in learning and development is an essential part of high quality provision’ (DfE, 2011a, para 2.4: 13). The principle of ‘the unique child’ recognises that each child is different, with the pace and sequencing of learning and development varying over time, which also underpinned non-statutory guidance (Department for Education (DfE), 2013), and ‘Development Matters’ (Early Education, 2012) to support practitioners’ assessments. The declarative features of the Tickell report, and the subsequent EYFS, are recurrent: words such as ‘best practice’ and ‘high quality’ are related to factual statements, and underscore the authoritative nature of the texts.

The terms ‘learning’ and ‘development’ are used in tandem and interchangeably throughout the Tickell reports (2011a, b), and the EYFS (DfE, 2012b, 2017), with examples of these terms being attached to other indicators and characteristics. For example,

Healthy learning/healthy development is identified with success in schooling and later life, feeling safe and happy, well-being and positive relationships. The reports (DfE, 2011a, 2011b) recommended a review of health and development between 24 months and 36 months, led by a health visitor, to identify developmental problems, with the assumption that judgements would transfer to practitioners in pre-school settings to inform educational provision and additional support;

Learning and development needs/developmental needs refer to age groups of children and to individual children, in relation to difference and diversities. The EYFS is intended to address variations such as disadvantage and deprivation, SEND, developmental delay, gifted and talented, gender, ethnicity, language and summer born children.

The overall policy aspiration is improving children’s life chances, expressed as the percentage of children achieving a ‘Good Level of Development’ by the end of the EYFS in the areas of learning and development which are as follows:

Prime Areas;

Personal, Social and Emotional Development;

Communication and Language;

Physical development;

Specific Areas;

Literacy;

Mathematics;

Understanding the world; and

Expressive arts and design (DfE, 2017: 7).

The ‘educational programme’ incorporates the 17 early learning goals (ELGs) that summarise ‘the knowledge, skills and understanding all young children should have gained by the end of the Reception year’ (DfE, 2017: 7). The ELGs are broken down into overlapping age bands to reflect variations in the pace of development, and educational programmes must involve activities and experiences in the Prime and Specific Areas. A key shift in the EYFS Statutory Guidance documents (DfE, 2012b, 2014, 2017) is from learning and development as processes, to constructing the learning and development requirements. This is where the messiness of these constructs becomes evident, particularly in the tensions between the ‘unique child’ rhetoric and the normative ELGs. The arrangements for assessment compound these messy constructs because the ELGs are developmental indicators/behaviours:

Each child’s level of development must be assessed against the early learning goals . . . Practitioners must indicate whether children are meeting expected levels of development, or if they are exceeding expected levels, or not yet reaching expected levels (‘emerging’). (Department for Education (DfE), 2012b: 11)

The recurrent use of ‘must’ underscores the persuasive function of the EYFS, and, when aligned with the assessment requirements, indicates a discursive shift from persuasion to coercion. The assessment regime captures each child’s level of development through the health and development review, and through the subsequent assessment of the ELGs at ages 48 months–60 months. The ELGs define the expected level of development by the end of the Reception year, evidenced by a score in three categories of (1) ‘emerging’, (2) ‘expected’ and (3) ‘exceeding’. In order to receive a ‘Good Level of Development’ a score of at least 2 is required in all areas. These scores and categories are politically convenient systems of reason because, if the pre-school system can shape children’s developmental pathways, they are more likely to achieve the learning goals, and to be ‘school ready’.

The organisation of the learning and development requirements is exemplified here in the ELGs for writing in Literacy between 40 months and 60+ months:

Reading: children read and understand simple sentences. They use phonic knowledge to decode regular words and read them aloud accurately. They also read some common irregular words. They demonstrate understanding when talking to others about what they have read

Writing: Children use their phonic knowledge to write words in ways which match their spoken sounds. They also write some irregular common words. They write simple sentences which can be read by themselves and others. Some words are spelt correctly and others are phonetically plausible. (DfE, 2017: 11)

Again, the declarative intent of this discourse is evident. Originally framed as ‘typical behaviours’ (DfE, 2012b), these ELGs remain skills-based, so that they are observable and measurable. This framing is problematic because it is not clear what are the implications for designing an ‘educational programme’ or curriculum, and whether practitioners are assessing children’s observable behaviours, their levels of development, or their achievement of the learning goals. Observable developmental behaviours indicate what children can do, but seem to be the outcome of accumulated experience, rather than capturing how children build and use their knowledge and understanding in different contexts. The normative discourse in the EYFS constructs children who are showing typical development for their age, may be at risk of delay, or are ahead for their age: the category of ‘emerging’ connotes being ‘at risk’ and ‘in need’ on the basis of ‘low development’, and signifies the need for interventions for children and families. Although there remain critical questions about how practitioners understand child development, the EYFS assessment requirements are a means of developmental categorisation that normalise/abnormalise children.

The coupling of developmentalism and policy technologies reflects a development leads learning epistemology, and fails to acknowledge important distinctions between theories of learning and theories of development. Therefore, it is difficult to see how practitioners might conceptualise curriculum design and content within this policy formulation. Furthermore, in spite of the authoritative policy discourse, the EYFS is confused in its purposes: providing guidance on what practitioners must do to enable children to achieve defined outcomes, but expecting them to make complex curriculum and pedagogical decisions about individual children in terms of the pace and variability of their development. Whereas children’s development must be guided, teaching must be oriented towards the learning goals that ensure school readiness. However, guiding children’s development and guiding their learning are, theoretically, different processes depending on what position is taken (development leads learning, or learning leads development).

By bringing together welfare and learning and development requirements, the EYFS was designed to raise standards and improve access to positive experiences for all children (DfE, 2011a, para 2.1: 12). The learning and development requirements, therefore, serve different purposes: to structure the educational programme, to assess children’s progress and achievements, to assess practitioners’ effectiveness, and evaluate the quality of the setting, as defined by the standards. The power effects of the EYFS as a policy technology thus define the subjectivities of children and practitioners, and privilege the acquisition of the ELGs.

What theories, values and priorities are conveyed in these texts?

Reflecting on the challenges posed by Hatch (2010) and Popkewitz (2009), it is important to understand what theories, values and priorities are conveyed in these texts, specifically how the learning and development requirements expect practitioners to enact particular forms of pedagogy and create the ‘educational programme’. The EYFS characteristics of effective teaching and learning specify that children learn through the following:

Playing and exploring;

Active learning;

Creating and thinking critically (DfE, 2017).

Practitioners are expected to guide children’s development as well as the relationship between the areas of learning, based on the level of development of the individual child (DfE, 2011a, para 3.33: 28). Observation, adult-child interactions, and flexibility between adult-led and child-initiated play are approved pedagogical approaches, which appear to be consistent with the interactionist theories of learning proposed in the EYLDR (Evangelou et al., 2009). The government’s response to the Tickell reports is explicit about progression from play to formal approaches:

The very best practice . . . acknowledges the importance of children using their curiosity and experiencing the pleasure of learning through play. But the best practice also ensures that all children grow up literate and numerate and ready for the next stage of their learning . . . practitioners should adopt a fluid, flexible approach that includes supporting children to be ready for a more formal setting as they get older. Readiness for Year 1 and later life depends on an approach to child development which combines play and teaching in safe environments. (DfE, 2012a: 14)

Again, the re-iteration of ‘best’ and ‘very best’ imply that these assertions are evidence-based and will enable practitioners to produce the required policy outcomes. However, in spite of the recommended ‘fluid, flexible approach’, there is pedagogical confusion about adults’ roles in play, particularly in relation to the rhetoric of ‘the unique child’. The policy rhetoric promotes curriculum and pedagogical approaches that respond to children’s needs, interests and natural developmental pathways, but the policy intention is that educational play serves age-related developmental purposes. The instrumental directives in the EYFS mean that notions of becoming are future-oriented towards academic achievement and school readiness. It is not clear whether (or how) practitioners should respond to children’s basic developmental needs, or how these relate to the educational programme, other than to plan activities that will enable children to acquire and demonstrate the ELGs. As Wood (2010, 2014) has argued, ECE practitioners have to manage the complex processes of formulating curriculum goals on the basis of children’s interests (an emergent/responsive approach), and/or planning activities that will enable children to achieve the learning goals and prepare them for formal learning (a directive/transmissive approach). Being responsive to children’s interests is challenging in terms of pedagogy and curriculum planning because interests are the impetus for complex (rather than basic) needs, desires and motives (Hedges, 2019). In contrast, the directive/transmissive approach is considered more effective as a means of ensuring school readiness because the EYFS constructs pedagogic progression as the transition from informal play to formal learning during the Reception year (ages 4–5). Again, there is some confusion here between children’s age, stage and development, and the formal approaches to learning that are emphasised in the transition to Key Stage 1.

Discussion

This analysis reveals how the EYFS provides the discursive and practical means for the alignment of child development theories, pedagogy, curriculum and assessment in ways that determine the range of possible options for practitioners. However, there are a number of problems with the EYFS orientation of development leading learning. Claims to ECE policy being evidence-based are strong in the policy texts analysed here, reinforced by the declarative, epistemic and persuasive/coercive techniques within the EYFS discourse. However, beyond the EYLDR, the epistemic warrant is drawn mainly from government-commissioned research and reports, and statistical summaries. Therefore, when subject to critical scrutiny, selected theories of learning and child development, and selected research findings legitimate the EYFS through policy-led evidence, which calls into question trust and credibility in the construction of this authoritative discourse. Thus, the claimed legitimacy is based on a circular discourse that produces the desired ideological, economic and educational effects, thereby, reflecting neo-liberalism as a structural force that permeates all aspects of ECE. The persuasive policy rhetoric claims that the EYFS is working for children and families to improve outcomes, raise standards and ensure ‘school readiness’. However, the policy problems, the proposed solutions, and the means that connect them, are situated within the paradigm of standards, regulation and accountability. The EYFS promotes a policy interpretation of child development as predictable and normative, based on linear sequences and goals that can be observed and measured. Such claims to truth are open to contestation, specifically what meanings, what knowledge and whose knowledge has been privileged in these constructions and fabrications. Knowing a child’s level of development, or their attainment against the ELGs, produces limited understanding about children and their diverse repertoires for learning.

In assessment, the categories of emerging, expected and exceeding are intended to show developmental variations, but may reinforce cultural difference. From a critical perspective, the construction of the EYFS child who is ‘at risk’, ‘in need’, or indicating ‘low levels of development’ may produce forms of deviance and marginalisation that can work against policy aspirations of improving children’s life chances. Furthermore, there is a risk of practitioners attending to children’s basic developmental needs because focusing on what must be measured may obscure what is significant, meaningful and interesting for children. These problems are not confined to early childhood, or to the EYFS. As Milner (2010) argues in the United States, if teachers are unaware of, or resistant to understanding, embracing, and utilising students’ cultures, they risk misreading and misinterpreting their behaviours. Therefore, it can be argued that attempts to construct limited interpretations of child development within the legitimacy of a policy framework are ill-judged in diverse societies.

Although practitioners are encouraged to develop their own approaches to curriculum and pedagogy to deliver the EYFS, structuring the developmental behaviours and ELGs effectively determines the educational programme. The EYFS, thus, reflects the power effects of educational agendas that are driven by standards and accountability (Hatch, 2010) with curricular progression being defined by the ELGs and readiness for the National Curriculum. The authoritative discourse within the EYFS, thus, calls into question how much freedom practitioners have to organise their programmes in different ways. Furthermore, the persuasive–coercive strategies privilege policy-defined ways of thinking, acting and understanding that influence the subjectivities of practitioners, and, in turn, how they position children against developmental norms. On this basis, it is difficult to discern how normative developmental discourses address post-developmental advocacy for culturally informed and responsive curricula and pedagogies as a means of promoting equity and social justice. These power effects, and uncritical approaches to ‘doing policy’, may sustain or exacerbate structural inequalities.

This analysis indicates the significance of using CDA to uncover how discourses operate in policy contexts as regimes of truth, within which children and are positioned and understood. The argument put forward by Fairclough et al. (2004), that people ‘organise and act through particular discourse’ is illustrated in the epistemic, declarative and persuasive–coercive nature of the policy discourse. In the EYFS policy interpretation, child development theories are enmeshed in surveillance of children, of practitioners and of families. Development is manifest as normative behaviours and skills that can be observed and assessed in hierarchical progression towards specified learning outcomes. This is not to argue against the use of child development theories regarding what develops, how development occurs, and what development means in cultural contexts. However, the EYFS is based on policy interpretations of existing interpretations of child development theories in ECE. In the former, those theories are used selectively, and in ways that ignore the complexity of research evidence, how this is produced methodologically and how it is interpreted theoretically. On the basis of this analysis, it is argued that, from a development leading learning orientation, the relevance of child development theories as the basis for curriculum design is limited, especially in informing curriculum content and coherence, and understanding progression. Accordingly, it is argued that an alternative theoretical framework is needed for ECE that provides the professional knowledge that might inform other possible options for developing curriculum, pedagogy and assessment.

This analysis raises critical questions about what ECE might look like from the perspective of ‘learning leading development’, as suggested by Hatch (2010). This theoretical orientation proposes that development occurs when the balance of power shifts towards the learner as they take increasing management of, and responsibility for activities (Rogoff, 2008). The qualitative changes that take place in children’s affective, cognitive, metacognitive and social capabilities enable them incrementally to adapt society to their own interests, needs and motives, because they are active participants in creating/producing their identities and pathways. The means that are used to support learning are social (such as mediation, dialogue, affect), inter-related (with people, materials, places and tools), individual (children’s agency in their own learning and development), and cultural (the influence of culture within children’s home environments, including cultural beliefs and relationships, and cultural ways of acting in and on those environments). Moreover, as Eun (2010) argues, there are different ways of constructing ‘formal’ teaching that maintain a desirable mix of approaches, where the interactive nature of teaching and learning is realised as teachers and children engage in collaborative activities with shared goals and purposes that are constantly negotiated through dialogues. Through the transformation of participation, children become more skillful, competent and knowledgeable, and progress towards deeper engagement and responsibility for assuming active roles in the management and development of activities over time. They participate in creating the environments that create their growth (Holzman, 2009: 47) and actively drive and produce their development in which ‘possible selves’ are integral to the construction of identity, knowledge and competence. Children develop by honing their expertise within tasks or activities that may already be complex, particularly in play where they do not need activities to be organised by adults into manageable tasks which have to be mastered in progressive and hierarchical stages.

These contrasting theoretical perspectives indicate that learning and development are in dialectical relationship. However, a learning leading development onto-epistemology contrasts with the scientific rationale of child development theories and how they have been used in the EYFS, and with the discursive construction and subjective positioning of the ‘EYFS child’. On the basis of this analysis, it is argued that learning and development are messy constructs within these policy discourses, where normative understandings of child development reflect both macro- and micro-political forms of disciplinary power. The subjective positioning of children against the EYFS developmental norms and ELGs are the means by which they become knowable and measurable, and are privileged over difference and diversity. This positioning was consolidated in the 2017 version of the EYFS which changed some of the ELGs to align more closely with Key Stage 1 of the National Curriculum, alongside a new framework for baseline assessment (Department for Education (DfE), 2018). This was followed in 2019 by a government-commissioned review of the EYFS and ‘Development Matters’, driven by the ‘school readiness’ policy agenda.

Linking CDA and policy analysis provides the means for understanding education policies as socially constructed systems of reason that carry power effects. All curricula reflect specific conceptualisations of how children learn and develop, the pedagogical roles of adults, and the socially valued forms of knowledge that constitute curriculum content or educational programme. However, this is not to argue simplistically against such policy technologies because they provide levers for funding, accountability and change processes in ECE. This continues to be a necessary endeavour in a field that is characterised internationally by wide variations in the quality of provision, in the range of qualifications and content of training programmes, and in the low status, low pay, and low skills of childcare workers within some sectors (Nutbrown, 2012). Nor should policy frameworks be expected to act as coherent or definitive theoretical frameworks to inform practice: that is not their purpose. However, it is important to raise questions about the challenges of knowledge transfer between theory, policy and practice, especially where theories and policy-led research evidence are used strategically and selectively to support particular positions. Shonkoff and Bales (2011) state that science has a role to play in advising policymakers on crafting responses to complex social problems, including those affecting children. However, they also identify countervailing forces that impede that role, including how research findings are taken up in different sites, and how boundaries are maintained between scholarship and advocacy.

Conclusion

Although the focus has been on the EYFS, this analysis reflects international trends towards instrumental and standardised approaches to ECE, the micro-level regulation of practitioners and children through macro-level policy technologies, and the challenges of knowledge transfer between theory, policy and practice (Lowenstein, 2011; McShane, 2016). ECE frameworks in many countries constitute a range of political ideologies and policy technologies through which specific forms of content, coherence and control are established (Wood and Hedges, 2016), including the selective use of educational effectiveness research for promoting notions of ‘good’, ‘best’ or ‘most effective’ practices (Lowenstein, 2011). Within these control systems, the regulation of learning and development is linked to the regulation of the field. Surveillance through assessment and inspection regimes means that practitioners must be, and must be seen to be ‘doing policy’, because these are the mechanisms for raising standards and quality.

Critical policy analysis has revealed a number of challenges to the field of ECE research and practice, specifically how discourses operate in policy contexts as regimes of truth, and as the frame within which children are positioned and understood. If child development theories are not in themselves an adequate professional knowledge base for ECE, then alternatives need to be explored and articulated. However, policies are not designed to reflect theoretical nuances and represent at best, a simplified version of complex processes. ECE policies in England, and in many countries, constitute a discursive regime, which constructs the problems to be solved, the solutions that will be implemented, and the means by which ‘success’ and ‘effectiveness’ will be measured. Thus it is argued that learning and development in the EYFS are problematic within a formalised statutory framework, and a rigorous inspection regime enforced by the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED). Not only has OFSTED become the sole arbiter of quality, it also produces reports that carry significant authority in defining approved forms of practice, based on selected policy-led evidence (Kay, 2018; Wood, 2019). Some advocates argue for more child development theory in workforce training programmes as a response to the limitations of the EYFS (House, 2011). On the basis of this analysis, it would be more pertinent to ask whose, or what versions of child development theories are used, and for what purposes. Furthermore, it is important to understand how policy texts require people to think about curriculum, pedagogy and assessment, what fabrications are masquerading as certainties, and the effects for children, families, practitioners and researchers.

It is not sufficient to question or disrupt developmental discourses from a theoretical or philosophical perspective without suggesting possible alternatives, or raising further critical questions (Hunkin, 2019). By identifying learning and development as messy constructs, this analysis challenges the uncritical interpretation of developmentalism in the EYFS, based on particular norms, values and power relations. Based on this critical analysis, it is not more, but better theories of children’s development that are needed, including critical engagement with different sources of knowledge that might inform curriculum content and coherence. However, ECE is not just the application of child development theories. Referring back to Goldstein’s (2008) proposition that ‘every question has many possible answers’ it is only by asking challenging questions that alternative responses can be crafted, for example how we might think differently, and more expansively about a learning leading development onto-epistemology, as proposed by Hatch (2010) and what implications arise for curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. This alternative position is significant in international contexts as ECE continues to expand, influenced by the twin drivers of economic and educational effectiveness. CDA and policy analysis play a significant role in identifying the contradictions inherent within those drivers, the discursive techniques used in policies, and their effects on children, practitioners and families. Such analysis, in turn, raises questions and possible alternatives that pay attention to broader moral and ethical principles, and principles of equity and diversity.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Elizabeth Wood

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