This is the second of two special policy editions of the International Journal of Early Childhood which canvass and analyse policy in early childhood education and care (ECEC) from around the globe. Taken together, the two editions (IJEC 45, 2, 2013; and IJEC 46,1,2014) bring contributions from Australia, Canada, Chile, Indonesia, Ireland, Malawi, New Zealand, Scotland and the United Kingdom. Utilising a range of methodologies to understand national policy contexts and analyse the consequences of policy in implementation, these collections of early childhood research enable both a sense of the flow of policy rationales and objectives across the globe as well as national specificities. In this second issue, as in the first, the reader can discern the emergence of common policy themes across national borders, and importantly, distinctiveness in the way in which seemingly common or familiar themes are expressed within national and cultural contexts. The unique policy challenges facing na ...

For increasing numbers of Australian children, childcare is part of their everyday experiences. The marketisation and corporatisation of education have been under discussion for some time, particularly in relation to schooling. There has been comparatively little public scrutiny of how this trend might impact on, and shape Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). This article explores the existing and potential impacts of privatisation and corporatisation of ECEC in terms of how these constrain and are reshaping the vision and the practice of what is done for children in the prior-to-school sector.

Evidence-based policy is a means of ensuring that policy is informed by more than ideology or expedience. However, what constitutes robust evidence is highly contested. In this paper, we argue policy must draw on quantitative and qualitative data. We do this in relation to a long entrenched problem in Australian early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce policy. A critical shortage of qualified staff threatens the attainment of broader child and family policy objectives linked to the provision of ECEC and has not been successfully addressed by initiatives to date. We establish some of the limitations of existing quantitative data sets and consider the potential of qualitative studies to inform ECEC workforce policy. The adoption of both quantitative and qualitative methods is needed to illuminate the complex nature of the work undertaken by early childhood educators, as well as the environmental factors that sustain job satisfaction in a demanding and poorly understood working environment.

QUALITY IN EARLY CHILDHOOD development was barely mentioned in government policy four decades ago. But this has changed. Using discourses and gazes as analytical tools, and by examining the recent past (1972–2009), this article traces how and why ‘quality’ has become a key component of the current Council of Australian Governments' agenda. We conclude that the elevated status of quality arises from shifts in policy understandings of the social and economic potential of early childhood education and care. These changing understandings highlight the need for in-depth genealogical analyses.