The Norwegian Early Childhood Education and Care institution as a learning arena: autonomy and positioning of the pedagogic recontextualising field with the increase in state control of ECEC content

The purpose of this study is to describe how external control influences ECEC teachers' autonomy and positioning. The research question is: How do ECEC teachers position themselves as agents viewed in the light of the increase in state control of the content in ECEC institutions?

The participating ECEC teachers find that requirements for their profession have increased over the last ten years, particularly after Norwegian ECEC institutions were placed under the Ministry of Education and Research. This means that ECEC teachers are now required to comply with more national and local governance documents. More governance documents result in clearer guidelines for the content of ECEC institutions, including work on children's learning, as well as higher demands for staff competences. Most ECEC teachers find it positive that ECEC institutions have been given clearer guidelines from political level, and assess that this results in a richer content and increased awareness of learning among ECEC teachers and in ECEC institutions.

Expectations of ECEC teachers' behaviour are also influenced by how much control the local authorities have of ECEC institutions as well as the demands and expectations of the head teacher for the institution as a learning arena. The degree of local control is thus important for the opportunities of ECEC teachers to position themselves in the performance of their profession. ECEC teachers' opportunities to determine content in everyday activities at the ECEC institution will therefore vary from institution to institution and from municipality to municipality. In that sense, the individual ECEC teacher's positioning depends especially on the degree of autonomy at local level. This is because the degree of state control is the same for all ECEC institutions, whereas the local framework and regulations in the individual ECEC institutions vary and offer the ECEC teachers opportunities for positioning.

The article is based on qualitative interviews with eight experienced ECEC teachers from four different municipalities. The interviews were centred on everyday life in the ECEC institution, the informants' reflections about the ECEC institution as a learning arena, the ECEC institution's priority areas and existing political priorities.
The interview material was analysed thematically using Bernstein's code theory, focusing on the concept "framing" as a tool to describe the correlation between external regulation and ECEC teachers' positioning.

Nygård, M. (2017). The Norwegian Early Childhood Education and Care institution as a learning arena: autonomy and positioning of the pedagogic recontextualising field with the increase in state control of ECEC content. Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 3(3), 230-240.