Rendering (gender) invisible: early childhood education and care in Ontario as a biopolitical social investment apparatus

Abstract

Shifts are occurring in discourses regarding childcare, creating changes in the development of early childhood education programmes. Childcare, as an important ‘investment’ for the future success of nation-states, is a discourse recently developed across a variety of political arenas, both globally and in local governing bodies and institutions. This article will characterise the dual processes of change affecting how childcare is understood – the need to invest in children, coupled with the scientisation of childhood – in order to place in context the transforming discourse around parenting, and mothering in particular. Two theoretical frameworks guide this analysis: (1) a review of alterations to kindergarten in Ontario, Canada, within an understanding of the ‘social investment state’ welfare regime, reliant on ‘human capital’; and (2) the application of Foucault's analysis of biopolitical apparatuses to show how changes to children's education will monitor and intervene in the formation and regulation of populations. Through an analysis of Ontario's Early Learning Programme, this article will demonstrate the problems of policy that ignores gender while simultaneously redefining ‘good’ parenting.