From ‘women’s work’ to early childhood education

Newtown Free Kindergarten, built in 1907, the first purpose-built free kindergarten in Australia. Photo courtesy KU Children's Services.

Sandie Wong’s PhD research is an historical analysis of early childhood education from the 19th century.

It deals with why early childhood education and care are differently constructed at different times, the power inherent in such constructs, and how things change. Her starting point is the first free kindergartens set up in NSW from 1893, designed for children under six and independent of both state and secular systems.

The kindergartens were largely a product of the recession of the early 1890s. Existing education for the youngest children came to be seen as an unnecessary expense for those too young to learn, and even a danger to their health. Working class children and their mothers were the losers.

Free kindergartens were designed to demonstrate an independent child-centred, play-based pedagogy of a kind still integral to early childhood education today. Middle class women took charge of working class children, who became objects of scrutiny engaged in play controlled by teachers. The children could be measured, compared and improved.

Such work could be seen as socially desirable. The free kindergartens were viewed as saving children from moral corruption and preventing future crime, transforming them into upright citizens, and reforming society in the process, through the effects on their families and communities. Beyond the local, the kindergarten’s work helped build the nation and a sense of national identity.

Another historical legacy from the nineteenth century which Wong identifies is early childhood education being seen as predominantly ‘women’s work’, done by women and for women. Such work enables them to enter the public world in an ‘appropriate’ way, in either paid employment or as a philanthropic duty. It offers women education and professional skills, including mothering skills. Kindergartens also supported mothers by providing child care.

“These constructs of early childhood grew out of essentialist feminist discourses about the ‘naturalness’ of women as carers, but also more radical feminist views about increasing women’s social participation,” says Wong. “My whole study shows how critical historical analysis is a useful means for identifying and critiquing taken-for-granted constructs of early childhood education.”

Wong has found her environment at Macquarie University’s Institute of Early Childhood crucial to her work. “It’s a centre of excellence in the field, and the breadth of knowledge and diversity of stimulating opinions have really helped me,” she says. She also enjoys its collegial atmosphere.

“The challenge is to balance your life. I’m a student, I lecture at the Institute, and I’ve been doing and writing up my own research. I love the challenge of research. This thesis brings together three things in which I’m really interested: early childhood, social justice and history.”

For further information, contact Sandie at swong@aces1.aces.mq.edu.au and see the Australian Centre for Educational Studies, School of Education Website at www.aces.mq.edu.au/educ_home.asp

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