1. Ethics and politics as first practice in
early childhood education and care
Professor Peter Moss
Thomas Coram Research Unit
Institute of Education University of London
peter.moss@ioe.ac.uk

2. Personal introduction

3. 1970s: Children’s Centre movement in
England
 Problem: split and under-funded system; services
fragmented, unresponsive & far too few
 Aim of the movement: to develop a ‘popular and
effective’ service for all children 0-5 and families:
o Serve small local catchment areas
o Planned and supervised by one authority
o Multi-purpose, responding to needs of local
communities
o Available on demand
o Free

4. Children’s Centre movement
 Solution: Integrated, responsive, multi-
purpose ‘Children’s Centres’ for all children
and families...a holistic community service
Our criteria suggest that the basic form of
service should be through multi-purpose
children’s centres offering part and full-time
care with medical and other services, to a
very local catchment area, but there is much
room for experimentation (Tizard, Moss and Perry,
1976)

5. Image of the EC centre
Children’s Centre is basis for my image of what
the EC centre can be
 Common images today = parking space (for
children) OR factory producing predefined
outcomes OR business selling a commodity (e.g.
‘childcare’) to parent-consumers
 My image = public space or forum...a place of
encounter for all citizens (children & adults)...a
collaborative workshop for communities with the
potential for many purposes and projects – some
predefined, others not...

6. Many purposes and projects of
the EC centre might include:
 Constructing knowledge, identities, values
 Providing family support
 Building community solidarity
 Sustaining cultures and languages
 Developing economy (including ‘childcare’)
 Promoting gender and other equalities
 Practicing democracy and active citizenship
 Resisting exclusion and other injustices
  (Add your purposes and projects)

7. 1990s: The problem with ‘quality’
Quality in early childhood services is a
constructed concept, subjective in nature and
based on values, beliefs and interest, rather
than an objective and universal reality (Moss
& Pence, 1994)
If quality is a relative concept
If the process of defining quality should be
participatory and democratic
Then definitions of ‘quality’ will differ – due to
multiple perspectives

8. 1990s: The problem with ‘quality’
Q: Can the concept of ‘quality’ accommodate
diversity of values, beliefs and interests? Can
you have multiple definitions of ‘quality’?
A: No. If value diversity, need to get ‘beyond
quality’...find another language to talk about
ECCE

9. 2000s: Ethics and politics in ECCE
 Today ECCE is first and foremost a technical
practice – seeking one right universal answer
from experts, but...
 ECCE is first and foremost a political and ethical
practice
 Political practice because ECCE should start
from political questions – ‘not mere technical
issues to be solved by experts...[but questions
that] always involve decisions which require us
to make choices between conflicting
alternatives’ (Chantal Mouffe).

10. Some political questions
 What kind of world do we want? What do we want
for our children?
 What is ECCE for?
 What is our image of the child? The EC centre? The
EC educator?
 What values? What ethics?
 What paradigm? What theories?
 What do we mean by ‘education’ and by ‘care’?
 What is knowledge? How do we learn?

11. Democracy as a fundamental value
Democracy is multi-dimensional concept: representative and
procedural...but also participatory and everyday
[Democracy is] primarily a mode of associated living embedded
in the culture and social relationships of everyday life
[Democracy is] a way of personal life controlled not merely by
faith in human nature in general but by faith in the capacity of
human beings for intelligent judgment and action if proper
conditions are furnished
[Democracy] must be reborn in each generation and education
is the midwife (John Dewey)
Democracy in ECCE : decision-making; curriculum; learning;
evaluation; deciding projects etc etc

12. 2000s: Ethics and politics in ECCE
 Ethical practice because education is a
relational field – we need ethical basis for the
relationship
 E.g. ethics of care and ethics of an
encounter...how do we relate in ways that are
caring? and in ways that respect ‘otherness’/
diversity?

13. 2010s: Relationship between ECCE
and Compulsory Education
 Dominant relationship today: ECEC ‘readying’
children for school...but there are alternatives,
e.g. ‘strong and equal partnership’...‘pedagogical
meeting place’
 Rather than ‘schoolification’, re-think education
from 0-18 based on new, shared political and
ethical practice

14. 4 propositions

15. Proposition 1
We need to get ECCE into perspective. We are
in danger of over-stating the impact of ECCE
on reducing the damaging consequences of
inequality and injustice...while understating its
potential for individual, family and community
flourishing.

16. Putting ECCE in perspective
 Unrealistic claims made for ECCE...it can fix
social and economic ills caused by inequality
and injustice...v.high return on investment
 Claims often based on small local studies in
US, a country where child poverty remains
high after 40 years of early interventions
 ECCE by itself is not a magic potion or silver
bullet – it is no short cut to a good society...we
need to put it into perspective

17. Putting ECCE in perspective
Are we sure there is no magic potion that will
push poor children into the middle class? Only
if the potion contains health care, childcare,
good housing, sufficient income for every
family, child rearing environments free of
drugs and violence, support for parents in all
their roles, and equal education for all...
Without these necessities, only magic will
make that happen (Ed Ziegler)

18. Putting ECCE in perspective
Inequality has risen to alarming levels around
the world....Inequality should be at the centre
of our attention...
Investing in people...begin in early childhood
[and] it must be followed by formal
education...Tax and benefit policies [to]
promote a better distribution of income...High
quality public services...reducing regional
disparities (Angel Gurria, OECD Secretary-General, 19/3/2012)

19. Putting ECCE in perspective
 Successful countries (Nordics) have very good ECCE –
but one part of a political and social system that is:
democratic and egalitarian; sustained by a well-
developed welfare state; with high taxes.
 EC centres – and schools – have an important part to
play in a good society as part of a political and social
system and if our image of them is a public space, a
place of encounter for all citizens, a collaborative
workshop for communities...a public resource of
great potential and many possibilities

20. Proposition 2
We need to get beyond ‘quality’ and talk
instead about - what we really value and
desire...and in the process acknowledge,
welcome and work with diversity, complexity
and multiple perspectives

21. Getting ‘beyond’ quality
 ‘Quality’ becomes meaningless with overuse
 When we try to give it meaning, we end up
with a set of supposedly universal and
objective norms defined by experts and
ignoring context, diversity and complexity
 ‘Quality’ cannot accommodate diversity and
complexity...treats ECCE as technical practice
NOT a political and ethical practice based on
critical questions and conflicting alternatives

22. Getting ‘beyond quality’ means...
 Not talking about ‘good quality ECCE’
 Talking about answers to critical questions,
what images? what concepts? what values
and ethics; what paradigms and theories? Etc.
 (e.g.) ‘ECCE that values democracy and
experimentation...works with the image of a
rich child...strives for ‘education in its
broadest sense’...adopts a post-structural
paradigm and experiments with the theories
of Delueze’

23. Getting ‘beyond quality’ means...
 No longer evaluating with standardised check-
lists
 Using participatory methods including
children, parents, educators, citizens, e.g.
pedagogical documentation:
making practice visible
subject to dialogue, reflection and interpretation
in relationship with others

24. Pedagogical documentation
Documenting what has been observed in work with the
children is one of the keys of Malaguzzi’s philosophy.
Behind this practice...is the ideological and ethical
concept of a transparent school and education...
[PD is] an extraordinary tool for dialogue, for exchange,
for sharing. For Malaguzzi it means the possibility to
discuss and to dialogue ‘everything with everyone’
(teachers, auxiliary staff, cooks, families, administrators,
citizens)…being able to discuss real, concrete things –
not just theories and words (Alfredo Hoyuelos, 2004)

25. Proposition 3
We cannot address ‘training’ of teachers,
educators etc until we have engaged with
critical questions and relational ethics, e.g.
‘what image of the child?’; ‘what relational
ethics will the teacher work with?’

26. What image of the child?
 Increasing interest in the social construction or
image of the child, e.g. sociology of childhood
 Many social constructions/images of the child, e.g. as
knowledge reproducer...innocent...nature
 Each image is ‘productive’ of policy, provision and
practice
 Images are always present in policy and research –
but implicit, unacknowledged, undiscussed...pretend
there is an essential or true child...the political
becomes technical

27. Reggio Emilia asks the question
and gives an explicit answer
One of the strong points [of our schools] has always
been that of starting from a very open, explicit
declaration of our image of the child, where image is
understood as a strong and optimistic interpretation
of the child. A child born with many resources and
extraordinary potentials that have never ceased to
amaze us, with an autonomous capacity for
constructing thoughts, ideas, questions and attempts
at answers (Loris Malaguzzi)
The image of the ‘rich child’

28. What image of the educator?
ubstitute mother...technician(applies a
programme) ...expert professional (knows the right
answers)
o-constructor of knowledge, researcher and
experimenter, working with the image of a rich child...
ore attentive to creating possibilities than pursuing
predefined goals… [with] responsibility to choose,
experiment, discuss, reflect and change, focusing on
the organisation of opportunities rather than the

29. What education for this image of
the educator?
 Graduate 0-6 profession (what % of workforce?
50% 80%) ...parity with school teachers
 Continuing education, including workplace and
postgraduate studies
 Education to cover:
 Diversity, complexity, uncertainty, experimentation...
‘pleasure of amazement and wonder’ ...people and
communities + paradigms and theories
 Democracy and participation: a democratic practitioner
 Critical thinking
 Relational ethics
 Diverse profession...20%+ men

30. Proposition 4
The process of engaging with political
and ethical questions should extend to
the whole education system and
provides a basis for a relationship
between ECCE and school that rejects
the discourse of ‘readying for school’

31. Relationship between ECCE and CSE
No.1.ECEC ‘readying’/‘preparing’ for school
 Dominant relationship today...and increasing
 Increases ‘schoolification’ - the downward
reach of traditional compulsory schooling
 Concerns about relationship I: inappropriate
content and methods...loss of identity and
strengths of early childhood education...no
change in the conservative school

32. Schoolification
Early education is assimilated, both conceptually and
administratively, to a traditional primary school
model...
Schoolified early childhood services are characterised
by age segregation, with children grouped by year of
birth; ...a predominantly knowledge transfer model
with whole class exercises; large numbers of young
children assigned to each group and insufficient
attention given to the needs, talents and agency of
the individual child; and often a neglect of children’s
play, family outreach and the social dimensions of
early education (John Bennett)

33. No.2. ‘Strong and equal partnership’
(OECD Starting Strong)
A strong partnership with the education system
should provide the opportunity to bring
together the diverse perspectives and methods
of both ECE and CSE, focusing on their
respective strengths, such as the emphasis on
parental involvement and social development
in ECE and the focus on educational goals and
learning in CSE (John Bennett)

34. No.3. ‘The vision of a pedagogical
meeting place’
ECCE and CSE come together to:
 understand different traditions, images, values,
practices
 co-construct something new in response to critical
questions...new shared images, values, goals,
practices
 shared approach from 0 to 18...new, shared images,
values, goals and practices (e.g. rich child, democracy,
ethics of care) and ‘education in its broadest sense’...
understood as a broad, holistic concept, concerned
with all aspects of well-being and development.

35. Some concluding reflections on the
concept paper and cases

36.  ‘Early Childhood: seeds for the future’ or
‘Early Childhood: one important ingredient for
a flourishing life - here and now & in the
future’
 ‘Quality ECCE’: drop ‘quality’ – instead
talk/argue about what we value and desire
 (I)NGOs: important role in developing a
democratic politics of early childhood...critical
thinking to dominant discourses...asking and
discussing political questions...resisting the
‘dictatorship of no alternative’

37.  ‘Creation of original, flexible and locally
relevant ECCE provision’. Meaning? Why
these? More work on image of the EC centre?
 ECCE for ‘improved school readiness’ – don’t
take this relationship for granted...there are
alternatives!
 Democracy as a fundamental value and
democratic practice can support and enrich
participation of parents/ families/
communities.

38.  Technical practice does matter, e.g.
structures, resources, methods...but always
comes after political and ethical practice.
 Innovation/experimentation important, but as
continuous movement, not occasional
movement from one position to another...
need to pay far more attention to sustaining
experimentation over time.
 Where to? Without asking this question,
danger of more of the same, reproducing
dysfunctional systems.

39. Dahlberg, G. & Moss, P.(2005) Ethics and Politics in Early Childhood Education. London:
Routledge.
Dahlberg, G., Moss, P. and Pence, A. (2007, 2nd ed) Beyond Quality in Early Childhood
Education and Care. London: Routledge.
Fielding, M. and Moss, P. (2010) Radical Education and the Common School: a
Democratic Alternative. London: Routledge.
Fortunati, A. (2005) The Education of Young Children as a Community Project.
Available from Children in Scotland,
http://www.childreninscotland.org.uk/html/pub_tshow.php?ref=PUB0202
Kaga, Y., Bennett, J. and Moss, P. (2010) Caring and Learning Together. Paris: UNESCO
Moss, P. (2009) There are alternatives! Markets and democratic experimentalism in
early childhood education and care. The Hague: Bernard van Leer Foundation.
http://www.bernardvanleer.org/publications_results?SearchableText=B-WOP-053
Rinaldi, C. (2006) In Dialogue with Reggio Emilia: Listening, researching and learning.
London: Routledge.
Vecchi, V. (2010) Art and Creativity in Reggio Emilia. London: Routledge