ABSTRACT

This paper reports a rhetorical analysis of policy texts illustrating the emergence of the mandatory Educational Leader role in early childhood services in Australia. We argue that policy texts before 2012 constructed a ‘problem’ of workforce quality in early childhood education and offered a new leadership configuration as a policy solution. We identify and critically address how this social architecture was constructed and made persuasive through key rhetorical devices, particularly the combined pathos of the vulnerable child and a logos of quality improvement. Initial analysis indicated an apparent contradiction between the economic rationalism of earlier (policy advice) texts and an emphasis on professional dispositions in the later (policy implementation) texts, when describing the Educational Leader. We argue, however, that these policy implementation documents reinforce, rather than contradict, a neoliberal economistic logos, because they attempt to form Educational Leaders as autonomous moral agents of neoliberal responsibilization. We conclude by considering some potential implications of our analysis for the early childhood field.

摘要

本文报告了对政策文本的修辞分析，说明了澳大利亚幼儿服务中强制性教育领导角色的出现。我们认为，2012 年之前的政策文本构成了幼儿教育劳动力质量的“问题”，并提供了新的领导配置作为政策解决方案。我们确定并批判性地解决了这种社会架构是如何通过关键修辞手段构建并具有说服力的，特别是弱势儿童的悲哀和徽标的结合的质量改进。初步分析表明，在描述教育领导者时，早期（政策建议）文本的经济理性主义与后期（政策实施）文本中对专业倾向的强调之间存在明显的矛盾。然而，我们认为，这些政策实施文件强化了而不是反驳了新自由主义经济学的标志，因为它们试图将教育领导者塑造为新自由主义责任的自主道德代理人。最后，我们考虑了我们的分析对儿童早期领域的一些潜在影响。