A child’s social, emotional, physical, linguistic and cognitive development are all important aspects of childhood and should be fostered in positive ways. To understand child development is not a matter of uncovering a set of empirical facts which dictate how the child will grow and learn (Walkerdine, 1998). The shift from studying childhood development to developmentalism happens when development becomes the main discourse in which we measure childhood skills and abilities. It dominates early childhood education, and the ways developmental knowledges are implicated in maintaining the status quo and producing contributing members of an economic society (Burman, 2017; Vintimilla et al., 2023). I believe this has happened in early childhood education because it when viewed without context, it makes sense. We want children to grow up to be happy and successful in whichever vocation they choose. The issue comes from the intentionality. These neoliberal ideals are not focused on the child’s happiness, but rather what they can contribute to our society that has marketable value. The intentionality of childhood development becomes the benchmarks of development and not the child’s experiences from day to day, and not the child as a whole. First, we must ask why it should be challenged, and then we can address how it can be challenged.
Educators must challenge developmentalism in early childhood education because we have the possibility for a more progressive future that we find in envisioned in feminist, postmodernist, and critical theorists (Langford, 2007). Langford (2007) is asking us to think about what makes a ‘good’ early childhood educator and I contend that we have to start right when our own education begins. Educators must do what they can to unsettle this dominating discourse of maintaining the status quo of the ‘proper’ child (Vintimilla et al., 2023). When educators focus only on what are deemed to be the appropriate behaviours of a child, they are not considering the complexities in which children live and learn. I believe this way of thinking can help educators step outside ourselves and outside of our own preconceived notions of the child. The goal is to support the individual needs of the child, not just raise them to the bar of what is considered to be a ‘successful’ child.
How can educators challenge a concept so ingrained in our profession? Start by removing outdated terms and ideas that were once the driving point of our profession. ‘Quality’ and ‘best practices’ are examples of terms that attempt to encapsulate early childhood education, and by doing so create the notion that all children have the same capabilities and needs. Terms such as these are implying a service model of early childhood education that sees parents as consumers; they are purchasing a commodity in the childcare marketplace, which values business principles above educational intentions (Early Childhood Pedagogies Collaboratory, 2020). Educators can step away from this type of marketplace exchange by rerouting focus to their pedagogical commitments. The focus needs to shift away from developmentalism to what 21st-century challenges these children are facing, and how they connecting to the community around them and society as a whole ECPC, 2020).
Pedagogical commitments challenge developmentalism because they are forcing the educator and child to look beyond themselves. They are viewing the community, and society, in the times in which we live and must consider what their place is within it. Early childhood educators will develop and change their pedagogical commitments over time and through experience, but the overarching theme remains the same: human beings are not an island, we are a smaller part of a whole and how we live and treat each other matters. By promoting this concept of ‘school-readiness’ it is implying that the child is not what matters, it is the result. It is asking the question: by the time the child is old enough to move on from my classroom, what are they worth to the outside world? From my experience, children are perceptive. They can intuit the value we place on them and their educational experiences. This is why focusing on pedagogical commitments becomes an invaluable tool in making meaning in the classroom. Pedagogical commitments can orient an early year’s setting’s curriculum and culture by allowing what emerges within the classroom guide their education as it relates to the times in which we live (ECPC, 2020).
Developmentalism can also be challenged by questioning the universal identity of the ‘good early childhood educator.’ Historically, it has been deemed that an early childhood educator should have the right temperament, the must have real love and respect for children, should be a person of imagination, and that the study of children’s mental and physical development should be the basis of her training (Walkerdine, 1998). While it is true that these are positive characteristics of anyone choosing to work with children, they should not define what an early childhood educator is, or does, for children. We must remember that children and childhood are constructed; we therefore have to study not only the child, but also the context (i.e., the interpersonal, cultural, historical and political situation) that produced her (Burman, 2017). This is also where pedagogical commitments can help expand the horizons of the educator to look beyond herself. If the educator takes on a hybrid identity by functioning within various social and historical contexts in relationship to others, we can see a more progressive environment for early childhood education (Langford, 2007). When I use the term ‘progressive’ I am envisioning a space where children are not boxed in by their stage of development, and are not boxed in by perceived behaviours. The intentionality of viewing the child as a whole and being able to see their capabilities and limitations and embrace them for who they are. Children with APD or other learning disorders are not a hinderance in the classroom, they are children who need support and encouragement, and they need to know that they have someone on their side.
Burman, E. (2017). Deconstructing developmental psychology (3rd ed.). Routledge.
Early Childhood Pedagogies Collaboratory. (2020, December 1). Conditions for moving beyond “quality” in Canadian early childhood education: An occasional paper. Childcare Resource and Research Unit. https://tinyurl.com/4nysxrux
Langford, R. (2007). Who is a good early childhood educator? A critical study of the difference within a universal professional identity in early childhood education preparation programs. Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 28(4), 333-352.
Vintimilla, C. D., Land, N., Kummen, K., Pacini-Ketchabaw, V., & Khattar, R. (2023). Offering a question to early childhood pedagogists: What would be possible if education subtracts itself from developmentalism? Early Childhood Pedagogy Network. https://www.ecpn.ca/blog/reflection/what-would-be-possible-if-education-subtracts-itself-developmentalism
Walkerdine, V. (1998). Developmental psychology and the child-centred pedagogy: The insertion of Piaget into early education. In Changing the subject: Psychology, social regulation and subjectivity (pp. 148-198). Taylor & Francis Group.
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