What’s Wrong with Equality? Developing a Critical Conceptual Understanding of Equality of Condition in Early Childhood Care and Education

Abstract

There is a deep ambivalence in Western society about caring and loving generally (hooks 2000). Love and care is seen as a largely personal and private matter. This is despite the fact that love, care and solidarity are essential components of human survival and Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) practice. In Ireland, the ad hoc nature of the ECCE policy structure, the limited conceptualisations of quality and equality in the sector for both children and adults, as well as increasing demands on ECCE workers draw our attention to the gendered nature of the sector, and to women being essentialised as carers. Recent moves at policy and practice levels to discard care in the naming of the sector in Ireland (replacing ECCE with Early Childhood Education) can be linked to the value placed on care and to the status of ECCE workers versus education and primary teachers. This might explain why some ECCE workers have begun to refer to themselves as early childhood educators. This could be seen as an effort to bring them closer to the dominant discourse, achieve recognition and status in an effort to improve working conditions. This chapter draws on feminist and egalitarian theories to critique the ‘equality of opportunity’ principle that is present in various ECCE policy documents in Ireland. Through a more robust equality framework Equality of condition (Baker et al. 2004) I examine the conditions afforded to the ECCE sector versus the primary school sector. My particular focus is on the dimension of love, care and solidarity (Baker et al. 2004) in ECCE.