Abstract
Challenging the conventional binary of morality and subversion as opposing forces, this article presents a new construct of ethical subversion in early childhood education and care professional practice. The conceptual framework combines constructs of emotional labour and care ethics, and theorising on power and subversive tactics. Text generated from focus group discussions and individual semi-structured interviews with graduate early childhood education and care practitioners provides the concrete corpus for Foucauldian discourse analysis. Critical analysis elucidates how, on the one hand, practitioners working in England experience ethical boundaries reflecting dominant discourses, while, on the other, they feel morally committed to care responsively even if it contravenes rule-based ethics. Ethical subversion is born from both reason and emotion: these are acts of loving disobedience by experienced practitioners who possess a deep understanding of risk and the critical implications of their rule-bending. Ethical subversion is relational and individualistic, supporting a care pedagogy focusing on the individual care needs of young children. Conceptualisation of ethical subversion raises important issues in the areas of ethics, management and professionalism: ethical subversion is constructed as a powerful phenomenon, with potential for effecting positive transformation in the lives of children and their families, while simultaneously augmenting constructs of professionalism in early childhood education and care in England.
Highlights
This article demonstrates how certain forms of subversion enable early childhood education and care (ECEC) professionals to provide responsive care for the benefit of young children’s learning and development
The construct of ethical subversion builds on earlier theorising of emotional labour (Hochschild, 1983), care ethics (Noddings, 1984), tactics in everyday life (De Certeau, 1984) and responsible subversion in nursing (Hutchinson, 1990)
Ethical subversion is born from both reason and emotion: these are acts of loving disobedience by experienced practitioners who possess a deep understanding of risk and the critical implications of their rule-bending
Summary
This article demonstrates how certain forms of subversion enable early childhood education and care (ECEC) professionals to provide responsive care for the benefit of young children’s learning and development. The notion that workers may act on different sets of feeling rules in response to the context and/or personal motivation diverges from Hochschild’s (1983) original concept; a more complex understanding of employees’ motivations within their emotional labouring informs the theorising of ethical subversion here. Conceptualising care as ethical in terms of involving cognitive, emotional and action tactics set within a moral relationship between individuals (Tronto, 1993) posits working within an ethic of care as going beyond Hochschild’s (1983) original definition of emotional labour. ECEC professionals labour at forming emotional bonds with individual children in order to provide relational care through affect attunement (Stern, 2000), even though long periods of sustaining emotionally close interactions with very young children place high emotional demands on the staff (Page and Elfer, 2013). No example in data collected Being aware of the balance, limits and boundaries of the key person role is important
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