The domestication of early childhood education plans in Finland

Introduction

In the social science literature observations about recent social and cultural trends in ‘modernity’ abound (e.g. Albrow, 1997; Bauman, 2000; Beck et al., 2003; Giddens, 1990, 1991). For instance, Jan Kampmann (2004) identifies a rupture in the approach to children and childhood, which he calls the movement from the first to the second institutionalization. According to this argument, the generation that grew up in the 1970s and the 1980s represents ‘the quantitatively institutionalized childhood generation’, whereas those growing up since then can be characterized as ‘the qualitatively institutionalized childhood generation’ (Kampmann, 2004: 131). Although Kampmann is thinking particularly about Nordic societies, he casts their experience as indicative of more general ‘modern’ trends.

Rather than reflecting on the issue of the generalizability of the Nordic experience, let us focus on the broader question of if and when general social and cultural trends can be found in modernity, how they come about. In other words, how is social change harmonized to the extent that it makes sense to talk about global trends? This is the question that forms the background to this article on the implementation of early childhood education plans in Finnish early childhood education, a reform that could be seen as an example of Kampmann’s ‘second institutionalization’.

The objective of this article is to investigate how the reform in Finland is connected to global trends and what happens when global ideals are adjusted to local conditions. Through a detailed analysis of different stages of the process, we aim to shed light on how, in making a reform inspired by globalized ideals, the latter are adapted to national circumstances. The aim is not to compare the Finnish case to other countries, but rather to develop a conceptual framework that can shed light on the question as to why nation-states and actors at the local level are willing to voluntarily adapt to global trends.

The article is structured as follows. First, we introduce the case study, the data analysed and the methodology applied. This is followed by an exploration of the international background to the administrative reform in preschool education, with a focus on the way the underlying ideals were interpreted as they were translated from theoretical principles into concrete planning practices. Next, we examine how the new practices were concretized in conversations between parents and day care staff. We conclude with a discussion of how the domestication process contributes to existing knowledge about the way in which local paths of change interact with those taking place elsewhere, eventually creating global trends.

The case study

As a recent reform in the Finnish child care system, the requirement that an individual early childhood education and care (ECEC) plan has to be drawn for each child (STAKES, 2004) is a prime example of the way in which national paths of change are intertwined with transnational trends. Although the new institution is in many ways unique to Finland, in which public day care organized by municipalities is the main institution that provides early childhood education and care, there are international influences behind this reform.

The ECEC plans form the first tier in a hierarchy of municipal and national early education programmes aimed at harmonizing and improving the quality of early education services. They are drawn up together with the child’s parent or guardian and usually revised at least once a year. The early childhood education plan is the main formal channel of cooperation between the home and day care, and as such, a novel phenomenon. Parents used to enter into contracts of care with their day care provider, but the new early childhood education plans are much more comprehensive in scope (Alasuutari and Karila, 2010).

The impetus for the new system came from the results of an OECD assessment of early education in 20 countries, including Finland. The international comparison found that the Finnish service and support system for small children and their families had many important strengths, but it also highlighted the absence of an integrated, comprehensive early education curriculum. It also pointed out that parents ought to have a more prominent role as partners in education (STM, 2000). The reform was devised as a means to address those critical points, but the final outcome cannot be understood merely on that basis.

To study this process, through which the transnational ideals used as the impetus were translated into new national principles and guidance documents and eventually into everyday practices, we focus here on two critical stages on the ‘highest’ and ‘lowest’ levels of the administrative hierarchy.

At the front end of the process, we examine the response to the challenges raised by the international evaluation, i.e. the development of a new administrative model and new national guidelines by studying all relevant documents related to the reform. In addition, we interviewed a member of the steering group responsible for the preparation and content of the guidelines. The back end of the process is represented by the way the new models changed everyday practices at day care centres. To address this issue we analyse a set of discussions on early childhood education plans conducted at three day care centres between parents and day care staff concerning 34 children. We focus on two themes – child assessments by staff members and education at home and parents’ actions.

Our methodological approach involved discursive analysis (Edwards and Potter, 1992; Wood and Kroger, 2000), theoretically informed by social constructionism in the broad sense (Holstein and Gubrium, 2008). That is, in analysing policy documents and speech in interaction we do not conceive of discourse as only a group of signs but also ‘as practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak’ (Foucault, 1972: 49). In other words, we pay particular attention to how things are framed and how that has a bearing on the way principles are turned into practices. These two parts of the study involve quite different types of data, the latter transcripts of face-to-face interaction and the former official documents. Yet, in both cases, we tease out tacit assumptions underlying what is said. In document analysis this entails pointing out how the passage from an ideal such as individuality to a practical definition in the same documents is presented in a self-evident fashion, whereas the analysis of transcripts focuses on explicating shared cultural expectations concerning the roles and positions of children, parents and professionals in institutionalized early childhood education.

From policy diffusion to domestication

The concept of globalization has meant a welcome break from the concept of modernization as a means to conceive of social change. Modernization draws on the assumption that social transformations are determined by an inherent but universal mechanism such that most advanced societies will resemble each other. In contrast, the concept of globalization approaches change as a diffusion of ideas across borders and the intensification of links between actors located in different parts of the world. Thus the neoinstitutionalist world polity approach (Boli and Thomas, 1999; Lechner and Boli, 2005; Meyer et al., 1997) explains isomorphic development by a constant spread of worldwide models. Emphasizing a shared rationalized world culture that constitutes state and non-state actors, world polity theorists argue that nation-states or their leaders are conformists that enact world models even when they are not appropriate for the local conditions (Meyer, 2004, 2010).

Although world polity theory provides a framework for research on global social change, it runs into difficulty in conceptualizing local–global interaction in local contexts. In other words, there is no single global model to be adopted by the local actors. Rather, it is a question of adjustment to global trends. Local actors do not simply copy what is going on elsewhere, but are active agents in the process. Therefore, world polity theory needs to be complemented by what we call a domestication approach (Alasuutari, 2009, 2011a). Research on domestication emphasizes that making a new element part of an existing field of activities is an active process that both transforms the home field in question and ‘tames’ the newcomer (Caldwell, 2004; Haddon, 2007; Morley and Silverstone, 1990; Silverstone and Hirsch, 1992). At the same time, we insist that isomorphism is a real phenomenon and it is local actors who play a crucial role in bringing about global trends and fashions.

The concept of domestication challenges the dominant conception of how global trends and fashions are created. The latter seems to assume that convergence is created by a ‘top-down’ mechanism in which policy models are transferred from ‘donors’ to ‘recipients’ in a mechanical fashion. The active role of local actors is conceived as a potential barrier to successful policy transfer or convergence. Hence, in world polity theory the influence of local actors is understood to produce a ‘decoupling’ between policy and practice, intentions and results, or formal and informal structures (Cole, 2005; Hafner-Burton et al., 2008; Meyer, 2010; Meyer et al., 1997). Similarly, analyses of the process of policy transfer often end up concluding that the state in question has deviated from the international norm or recommendation (Lodge, 2005; McBride and Williams, 2001). For instance the way in which media domesticate news stories so that the ‘same’ events are told in divergent ways in different countries has been celebrated as ‘a countervailing force to the pull of globalization’ that threatens to homogenize news around the world (Gurevitch et al., 1991: 206).

Instead of the image of the global as somehow above the local, we suggest that local disputes and reforms are the interface through which national paths of change are synchronized with each other. As Kerstin Sahlin-Andersson points out, ‘local problems are constructed through comparing the local situation with that of other organizations’ (1996: 70). The same goes for nation-states as organizations; often with the help of international organizations which collect comparative data and recommend ‘best practices’, states regularly keep an eye on developments in other states (Buduru and Pal, 2010). The nation-state is also commonly conceived of as a strategic actor engaged in competition with other states, as the wealth and wellbeing of the population is understood to depend on national competitiveness. Thus policymakers do not promote global ideas or models simply because they want to mimic others, but rather because they are understood to lead to improved effectiveness and better economic performance. At the same time, models may be copied from ‘leading’ countries as a means of establishing the nation’s credentials as a ‘modern’ country (Alasuutari and Rasimus, 2009). In that way, the spread of global trends is a byproduct of the cultural frame of state competition and the tacit concept of modernization as a predetermined trajectory of change (Alasuutari, 2011b). ¹

Paradoxically, the cultural frame of state competition also contributes to reinvigorating a banal nationalist (Billig, 1995) sentiment in the sense it contributes to the construction of the nation as a self-evident community of citizens with shared interests. That is, international comparisons and the adoption of models from other countries may lend credence to the idea that the nation is following its own trajectory. That does not mean that conflicting interests in the domestic field are ignored. Rather, how problems and challenges identified through international comparisons are articulated and how the ideals are translated into practice depends on complex local processes and the play of power (Acharya, 2004; Cook, 2008; Czarniawska-Joerges and Sevon, 1996; Dolowitz and Marsh, 1996; Evans and Davies, 1999; McCabe, 2007). International comparisons are evoked as justification for a reform precisely by actors who assume that it will serve their interests. Similarly, other actors will defend their positions by contesting the conclusions to be drawn from such international comparisons.

Such a process of domestication does not mean, however, that the link between national paths disappears or that the local processes are unrelated. Rather, the rationalities, counterarguments and forms of resistance which different parties invoke to defend their positions and interests in local sites are also global and in that sense form part of complex transnational ‘regimes of practices’ (Dean, 1999; Foucault, 1991). That is particularly the case because the ideas and recommendations provided by international organizations such as the OECD are prepared by teams that include experts, policymakers and other stakeholders from different countries, so that the potential counterarguments are already addressed in the texts as part of the discursive field.

To use Bourdieu’s metaphor of field (1991, 1993, 1996), the local process and power play triggered by the introduction of global trends and recommendations could be called a battle field. In a national political field, in which state-level reforms are debated and negotiated, the most important rule seems to be that although participants defend their own interests, positions and convictions, they justify their views and demands in terms of what is best for all citizens. As the case analysed in this article illustrates, however, the process of domestication often entails several other fields in which the effects of a reform are negotiated and turned into actual practices. The rules of such sub-national fields are different and enjoy a relative autonomy from other fields and from the national field. As the effects of a national reform depend on the outcomes of these battles in relatively independent fields, it could be assumed that the eventual outcome in individuals’ lives could be quite different from that which the reformers had in mind at the national level. At the same time, the different administrative levels are only relatively autonomous. Thus in the preparation of new legislation, local-level actors are often consulted as stakeholders. Therefore, the articulation of principles in the national-level policy documents already includes assumptions about the ways in which they will be translated into actual practices. In that sense, reforms are negotiated and passed through several fields from supranational to a number of local levels, but these fields are interlinked by a web of actors that operate in different fields.

The global and local context of the reform

The reform that led to the introduction of individual early childhood education plans into Finland is a prime example of how global and local trends are in constant interaction. On the one hand, the reform was unique in the sense that there was no exact counterpart to it anywhere in the world. On the other hand, it reflects globally fashionable ideas, some of which are used as justifications in the Finnish policy documents. For instance, the documents stress that child care and education are an investment in the child’s future; a framework that has become a norm in industrial countries (see e.g. Foucault, 2008: 226–232). The reform can also be considered as an example of a new public intervention into the life of young children and their families, a technology of government (Rose, 1996; Rose and Miller, 2008) which produces ideals of how children, parents and families ought to lead their lives and of what they should strive to achieve. At a more general level, it exemplifies the way in which international comparisons and experts’ recommendations are used as justifications for local reforms. The latter point can be seen in role the OECD played as a cultural intermediary in the reform.

Along with other international organizations, since the 1990s the OECD has been active in advocating reforms in the field of early childhood education (Mahon, 2010). It has had two projects: Starting Strong (OECD, 2001, 2006) and Babies and Bosses (OECD, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007). Finland has taken part in both projects. In the Starting Strong project, first a representative of the National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health (STAKES) and later a representative of the National Board of Education served as national coordinator for the Finnish review (OECD, 2001, 2006; STM, 2000). Furthermore, following the OECD practice, several government officials provided feedback on drafts of the ‘Country Notes’. Similar procedures were followed in the Babies and Bosses’ review of Finnish practices (OECD, 2005).

The government’s resolution on national guidelines for early education (STM, 2002) and the new guidelines published by STAKES (2004) referred to both OECD assessments. Both formed part of the same reform process, with STAKES providing the primary link between international and national experts and stakeholders. For instance, at STAKES there was a steering group (2002–2003) responsible for the preparation and content of the guidelines. The group, chaired by the Deputy Director General of STAKES, drew its membership from an expert team at STAKES, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, the Ministry of Education, the National Board of Education, the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities and the Office of the Church Council. In addition, there were representatives from two university early childhood education and care departments as well as several trade unions representing the practitioners in the field. The steering group was assisted by the expert group in STAKES and by a working committee elected from the members of the steering group. A number of ECEC experts were also invited to contribute to the work of the steering group and to comment on the draft of the guidelines, including one of the authors of this article. Many of the commentators were from the universities and from STAKES but among them there were also municipal early childhood officials, heads of early childhood institutions and a few kindergarten teachers. The preparation of the national curriculum guidelines could also be followed and commented on a specific web page (STAKES, 2004).

The idea of ECEC as an investment in children was one of the ideas promoted through the OECD collaboration (see e.g. OECD, 2001: 43). In Starting Strong reports, this idea is particularly linked with the concern for children with special needs and with the Reggio Emilia approach, which emphasizes the advantages of participatory evaluation of children and hence child documentation and portfolios as means to improve quality and awareness of individual development (see e.g. OECD, 2001: 71). Finland’s decision to introduce individually tailored plans for all children might also have been influenced by the example of other Nordic countries, since in Sweden and Denmark, too, parents can have face-to-face development discussions with staff members in early childhood education. However, a member of the steering group whom we interviewed indicated that inspiration had been drawn from the Reggio Emilia approach highlighted in Starting Strong.

At the same time, the reform follows Finland’s own tradition of preschool education. For instance, the decision to draw up individual early educational plans can be seen as an extension of the practice started in the late 1980s according to which children with special education or health needs have had tailored rehabilitation plans (Act 1119/1985). It is also necessary to bear in mind the history of Finland’s day care system, which has been closely associated with the view that through the provision of day care services, society can offset some of the adverse effects of family background and inadequate parenting on child development (Välimäki, 1998).

In that sense, it is misleading to see the reform as imposed on the Finnish day care system from without or that the actors blindly enacted a ready-made global model. Rather, the Finnish state-level policymakers were active in getting the development of early childhood education on the OECD agenda, asking the organization for a review of the domestic institution and then making selective use of the international reviews as justification for the reforms. At the next stages, local actors in different municipalities and day care centres have played an equally active role in translating regulations into practices.

The meaning of individuality in the policy documents

The convergence between global trends and the national tradition in early childhood education can be seen in the way in which individuality is used as a justification in the key documents related to the reform. Individually tailored early education, which appears in international recommendations, is highlighted as the main objective in the Finnish policy documents. At the same time, the way the concept is elaborated in these documents situates the reform as much less of a radical departure from the national tradition.

Before discussing the meaning of individuality in more detail, it should be noted that respect for international ideals was not intended to please the international audiences but rather to convince the national policymakers. The use of individuality as a justification is an example of how selectively and creatively the international reviews are used in the policy documents that define the new administrative model and national guidelines. Such creative referencing highlights the fact that these documents are part of the political process in which the government justifies its submission to parliament, which takes the final decision, in order to gain the support of the majority.

Such selective referencing can be seen in the government resolution (STM, 2002) which refers to the OECD assessment of Finland (OECD, 2000) to back up the statement that the ‘Finnish system of service and support for families with children and early childhood education is rated very highly in terms of access, variety, staff training and parental choice’ (STM, 2002: 7). Yet no mention is made of the OECD’s statement that Finland lacks a comprehensive nationwide education plan, or the lack of parental involvement as pedagogic partners. Although in a subsequent document by the Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health, which sets out national guidelines for the implementation of early childhood education (STAKES, 2004), the OECD is not mentioned at all, the 2009 report by the advisory committee on early childhood education (STM, 2009) makes clear the association between the OECD assessment and the development of a national early childhood education system.

Similarly, the OECD and the World Bank’s emphasis on early childhood education as an opportunity for each child to develop their full potential (OECD, 2001, 2006; World Bank, 1995), accorded with the high value placed on equality in Finland. As the government resolution puts it: ‘The role of early childhood education is to promote the child’s healthy growth, development and learning. It must provide equal opportunities for all children to develop their full potential’ (STM, 2002: 5). Together with another widely shared ideal, the importance of educational partnership with the parents, equality of opportunity serves as justification for the development of a tailored early childhood education plan that lies at the heart of the new system.

In this way the reform is presented as a ‘natural’ step in further advancing these principles, which are widely accepted in Finland. At the same time the reform appears to answer the OECD critique that education has placed too much emphasis on the professional perspective and that the broader, family context has been largely neglected. Similarly, when talking about true and equal partnership with parents in early education, the national curriculum guidelines document repeats the OECD Starting Strong report almost word for word (OECD, 2001: 117), while failing to cite it as a source.

The way these ideals are to be defined in practice, however, is quite different from what one would expect. It appears that in practice the child’s individuality and individual needs refer to children that are in need of special measures because of, say, learning disabilities. Thus, although the reform talks about drawing up an individual early educational plan for each child, the more detailed explanations of the new system imply that such individual plans are only made when a child needs special support. As the national guidelines on the implementation of early childhood education and care plans put it:

The plan aims to take account of the child’s individuality and the parent’s views in arranging the child’s care. It enables the staff to act consistently and be aware of the child’s individual needs. The staff should systematically and consciously observe the child’s development and take account of their observations in planning activities and in the child’s individual ECEC plan. (STAKES, 2004: 29)

In addition, in these guidelines the much emphasized ‘pedagogical partnership’ between parents and early education staff is associated first and foremost with special needs. In the government resolution, partnership is identified as a way to take account of the child’s special needs for support, learning difficulties, language and cultural background, as well as girls’ and boys’ different needs in early education (STM, 2002: 5). The document explicitly connects partnership to specific problem situations:

Another aim of the ECEC partnership approach is to enable early accurate identification of the child’s potential need for support in some areas of growth, development or learning, and to collaborate with the parents to create a common strategy for supporting the child. The partnership approach should also be pursued in problem situations in interactions between the child’s parents and staff members. (STAKES, 2004: 28)

So while the administrative guidelines stress that the purpose is to develop a tailored early childhood education plan for each child, the linking of the individual orientation and educational partnership with special needs gives individuality a special meaning. The focus is on staff discussions with parents of children who have special needs. The educational partnership becomes a necessary prerequisite for ameliorative action as any measures taken with the child require the consent of the parents.

Thus the actual effect of the reform for the national day care system has been a systematic screening device to identify children in need of special care. For the day care staff it potentially serves as a systematic tool for early intervention. For the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health the documentation makes it possible to get an overall picture of the proportion of children in need of special support. Indeed, the Ministry has begun to publish a regular review of the state of child day care in the country based on a questionnaire survey of officials responsible for day care and preschool education in Finland’s municipalities (Färkkilä et al., 2006; STAKES, 2008). These reviews provide statistics on the proportion of children in municipal day care with special needs and identify the proportion of those in need for whom such support was available.

The use of early childhood education plans as a screening tool for the special needs cases is also seen in the forms used in discussions with parents. No detailed national guidelines were issued on the implementation of this new administrative practice, but local councils were left to their own devices and to develop their own forms for this purpose. An analysis of a sample of these forms collected from different municipalities (see Alasuutari and Karila, 2010) suggests that discussions with parents are used primarily as a means to assess children and to learn from parents about the family and education practices at home. There is no assumption that parents will intervene in the day care centre’s educational practices or its actions more generally.

The child in the institution

Based on the conversations recorded for this research, it seems clear that the early childhood education plans are primarily used as a tool to identify and discuss potential problems and to find ways by which families could prevent or solve them; hence the focus is turned away from the child care institution to the child and to the family. In their interaction with parents, staff members provide accounts of what the child is like and their daily routines in the day care centre. At the same time, these accounts tend to be evaluative: they represent the child either in positive terms as an active and capable child, or in contrast as falling short of the day care system’s expectations. To some extent, these assessments are open and explicit, but they are predominantly implicit, written between the lines. This is clearly demonstrated in the following example where the mother of three-year-old girl receives (predominantly) positive feedback of her daughter’s interaction with day care adults. The transcription symbols used in the examples are explained in Appendix 1:

Example 1

Overall, it is clear from the research material that small children are expected to enjoy sitting on their carer’s lap and in this way to show their trust in and closeness to the adults at day care. However in this child’s case the reference to sitting on an adult’s lap is open to interpretation: the reference to ‘still’ may be taken not only as a positive assessment of her trust in adults, but also as a hint that maybe she has reached the age where she no longer should be spending so much time on an adult’s lap. Towards the end of the excerpt, however, the staff member offers a clearly positive assessment of the girl’s relationship to adults. The way she comes to talk to adults is described as ‘lovely’. Indeed among older children the discussions between parents and staff members place great emphasis on children being able to talk openly to staff members about their experiences, thoughts and emotions. The girl lives up to these expectations. From the staff member’s point of view she is a child whose thoughts one does not have to try and ‘second guess’, and therefore in the daily routines of day care she is an ‘easy child’.

Although staff members’ descriptions of children focus mainly on everyday routines at day care – sleeping, eating, dressing, hygiene and spending time with other children – they are never just neutral ‘reports’. They also communicate expectations and assumptions about the child and, against those expectations and assumptions, portray the child in either a favourable or critical light. In this sense, staff members’ descriptions of children present a kind of ideal image, showing what the ordinary or ‘normal’ child in day care should be like. Table 1 provides a summary description of this child and the dimensions against which staff members describe children in their discussions with parents (Alasuutari, 2010b; Alasuutari and Markström, 2011).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 1.

Dimensions against which children are considered ‘normal’ by day care staff.

Dimensions	‘Ordinary’ child
Child in day care routines	Observes rules and routines at day care.
	Is self-directed and independent.
Child in relation to day care adults	Follows adult supervision and rules.
	Likes to go to day care and accepts adults at day care.
	Is happy and positive towards adults.
	Is interested and takes active part in supervised activities.
	Accepts care and proximity of adults.
	Reveals personal concerns to adults and expresses emotions.
	Does not try to appropriate adults and does not bond too closely with adults.
Child in peer relations	Seeks and enjoys the company of other children.
	Plays.
	Plays with children of the same gender and gender-compatible games.
	Can behave reasonably and rationally in conflict situations.

It is also clear from the staff members’ descriptions that they view the child primarily from the vantage-point of the day care centre’s practices and order. That is, their descriptions are first and foremost accounts of how the child has adapted to the institution and copes with its daily practices. The main focus in discussions of the child’s individuality and the planning of their education is on the child’s social coping (Alasuutari, 2010b; Alasuutari and Markström, 2011). The underlying assumption is that if there are any problems with adaptation, then the child may be in need of special support. So with only slight exaggeration, one could suggest that it is only when the child has difficulties adapting to day care’s everyday practices and routines, when they no longer cope, that the focus of early childhood education plans turns to the child’s individuality. It is also noteworthy that pedagogic work with children in day care, the development of the child’s cognitive and learning skills, receives fairly little attention. For instance, discussions of early childhood education make no mention of such educational orientations as the mathematical, natural sciences and historical-societal orientation of education as outlined in the national curriculum guidelines for early childhood education (STAKES, 2004).

The family as support or as risk

The same underlying assumption that a normal child adapts to day care and non-normal children require special attention can also be seen in the position parents are placed in the parent–staff discussions. In case of problems, parents are treated on the one hand as a support for the child’s adaptation, or as a risk and potential reason for the child’s problems on the other.

The main role assigned to parents in discussions of the individual plans is the provision of information about the family and its educational practices. The role of day care staff members, then, is to assess family practices and to steer and influence those practices as subtly as possible (Alasuutari and Karila, 2010). This process of steering parents in the right direction is first and foremost about providing models of education. From day care’s point of view, the family’s practices may both promote and hamper the child’s adaptation to day care routines, which is why it is so important to learn about the family and to steer the way they raise their children.

Discussions of individual plans typically raise a wide range of different ideals of how the family should work with the child and how the child should be raised. These ideals may equally concern the child’s basic care or ways of supporting their emotional wellbeing. Similarly, the discussions communicate various ideals and assumptions about the parents’ mutual division of labour and the family’s shared activities. These ideals are often expressed through very subtle linguistic means, as in the example below. Here the short question by a staff member about a two-year-old’s meals elicits an expectation concerning both the child’s and the parent’s behaviour. The example also shows how the parent’s actions may be incorporated as part of the discussion even though they are not explicitly addressed:

Example 2

In this excerpt the staff member’s first comment is an indirect question and a statement concerning the child’s behaviour. The wording ‘I’m sure’ creates the impression that the child’s independence in this particular situation is presumed and desirable. Even though the statement de facto concerns the child, the question also sets a model for the parent. The interpretation implied is that if the parent did still feed the child, it would be undesirable. However the mother’s response is open to interpretation; it both complies with the staff member’s assumption and presents a different picture of reality. The staff member therefore repeats her assumption, albeit in a toned-down manner by adding the word ‘usually’. In her last line, the mother responds to the staff member’s assumption by describing the child’s behaviour as eager learning. The response portrays the child as an independent agent (the child is ‘learning’), as the staff member’s ideal presumes, but at the same time makes the indirect point that the ideal has not yet been fully reached because the child is still in the process of learning. As such, the mother’s responses indicate how the staff member’s comment comes across as a normative expectation. In this face-to-face situation it is not easy to deny the implied ideal of child and parenthood.

Another common focus concerns the imposition of restrictions on the child’s activities (Alasuutari and Karila, 2010). The very question of imposing limits elicits an expectation and model concerning the parent: it is clearly assumed that the parent understands the importance of setting boundaries to children. In addition, parents are typically reminded of the importance of adult authority when discussing the issue.

Hence, ideals about how to raise children and about family life are also communicated to parents – although advising parents in the context of early education discussions is clearly a highly sensitive matter. It is only rarely that staff members hand out advice directly to parents. Instead, they may advise parents by offering a (psychological) interpretation of the child or of the situation in hand, doing so in such a way that the interpretation leads the parent towards a more appropriate line of behaviour (Alasuutari, 2010a, 2010b).

The ideals of child education produced in discussions about early childhood education plans are first and foremost models that are consistent with the principles of the day care institution. According to those models the child’s adaptation to that institution is produced and facilitated by the family. That is also why in the discussions the staff members ask for information about parents’ practices, for instance about media use. In discussions about problem situations, then, the family is easily interpreted as a risk to the child’s development and as a factor that can help explain the occurrence of problems. Overall, then, the family assumes a prominent and important role in the child’s adaptation to the day care environment. Therefore the discussion about early childhood education plans is above all focused on how the family raises its children rather than on how day care can adjust and adapt to the child’s individual needs.

Conclusions

Using the recent Finnish reform of early childhood education as an example, the aim of this article was to scrutinize how reforms in one nation-state are linked with global trends and hence contribute to strengthening such trends and synchronizing local paths of change. We believe this serves as an example of the complexity through which local reforms are related to global ideas. Finnish policymakers did not simply copy policies adopted elsewhere; rather, they were actively engaged in OECD projects to collect comparative data about and invite international evaluations of Finnish early childhood education, to be then used as grounds for the reform made. In addition to international experts, domestic experts and representatives of different stakeholders were also engaged in negotiating the reform, so that the guidelines for early childhood education plans drawn by the steering group can be considered as an upshot of a process in which different interests and views were reconciled.

In addition, the early childhood education reform illustrated the way in which such a process of domestication takes place at different administrative levels or fields all the way from national politics to the grassroots level of day care centres. These different fields in which the actual effects of a reform are negotiated among the actors are relatively independent from each other, so that in principle the domestication of global ideas could lead into practices that are far apart from the original intentions. Indeed, it was interesting to note that the early childhood education reform has not fully met its declared objectives. Parents and day care staff do get to know each other more closely through the meetings now arranged once or twice a year, but they do not really get to develop tailored individual plans. Rather, the development of individual plans is mainly reduced to a screening tool, and individuality only applies to special cases. Likewise, the pedagogical partnership of the parents has not really worked out; rather, the new practice reproduces the role of staff members as experts. Parents are primarily assigned the role of actors who may help adjust their children to the day care institution or who may represent a potential risk in that respect.

In the light of world polity theory it could be argued that the reform in question is a prime example of decoupling: worldwide ideals are enacted but there is a huge discrepancy between policy and practice or intentions and results. At the same time it can be seen as evidence of the fact that despite globalization, policy differentiation remains a reality (Alasuutari, 2010b; McBride and Williams, 2001) and domestic interests and national traditions may overrule the possibility for ‘policy transfer’ or ‘diffusion’ (Lodge, 2005).

More broadly, this example urges us to think more carefully what decoupling or policy divergence may mean in different contexts. There are certainly cases in which policy models or ‘best practices’ are paid lip service to but simply discarded when it comes to any changes in current practices. Yet it is important to emphasize that declared objectives of a reform must not be confused with the ‘original’, perhaps a worldwide model, which is then contrasted with actual practices. Rather, the ideals and objectives stated in the documents related to the reform in question must be seen as part of the political process and of the form of governance that the reformed policy represents.

This applies to all stages of the process. As was pointed out, individuality and pedagogical partnership with the parents were used as justification in the government resolution, but it would be misleading to assume that they were just rhetoric used to get the reform through parliament. The same ideals are still lived reality at the grassroots level in day care centres. Those ideals provide the framing for both the staff and the parents for the meaning of the new practice, and hence contribute to making them appreciate it. Based on the interviews conducted it seems that, generally speaking, adults find these discussions a positive experience. For instance, they learn about the everyday routines of day care and find out how their children are coping (Alasuutari, 2010b). In that sense, such ideals and declared objectives are part of a regime of practices.

Similarly, the actual form that the new practices assume must not be mistaken for the effect of national tradition nor is it entirely dependent on the constellation of forces in the local field battle that the introduction of a reform triggers. Not only the ideas or models being domesticated but the rationalities, counterarguments and forms of resistance which different parties invoke to defend their positions and interests are often transnational. A transnational trend should be seen as a regime of practices that consists of declared ideals, counter-discourses and practices that assume their shape in the local field battle. There may be bigger or smaller differences between different countries in the final outcome, but because several aspects of such a global trend are transnational, it is no wonder that the upshots also bear some resemblance to each other.

This seems to be the case also with the practical results of the Finnish reform discussed in this article. An analysis of parent–teacher conferences in Finnish and Swedish preschools (Alasuutari and Markström, 2011) shows that there is a similar kind of discrepancy between the declared ideals of educational partnership and individuality on the one hand and actual practices on the other in both countries (see also Roth and Månsson, 2008; Vallberg Roth and Månsson, 2006, 2009). Yet this does not mean that the idealistic goal of a unique educational plan tailored for each child is mere rhetoric with no real effects. Although the new practice of regular parent–teacher conferences and their goals may not have a substantial effect on the daily practices of day care, they contribute to reframing child rearing and affecting parents’ and teachers’ attitudes.

In a larger international context the reform can be seen as part of a gradual global shift towards conceiving of early childhood education as an investment in the child’s future. There are different versions of this social investment paradigm, which stresses that each child should be given the opportunity to develop its full potential and that early education supports their skills and inclinations and irons out inequalities stemming from individual characteristics or from social background. According to the World Bank’s American-influenced ‘intrusive liberalist’ (Mahon and Macdonald, 2010) view, early and preschool education that relies on scarce public resources should be limited to poor children because the elite can afford to pay their own way (Mahon, 2010: 173; Mahon and Macdonald, 2010; World Bank, 1995). Drawing on developmental psychology, this line of thinking underscores the point that early education also supports the child’s individual development. As Van der Gaag and Tan (1997: 32) observe, the provision of support for the care and education of poor children guarantees that all talented and interested children have at least reasonable access to wellbeing.

The World Bank’s stance can be contrasted to an ‘inclusive liberalist’ (Craig and Porter, 2004; Mahon and Macdonald, 2010) version, which is closer to the rationalities behind the Finnish case. As was discussed earlier in the article, the Finnish reform aiming at drawing up ECEC plans tailored for each child seems to have been primarily motivated by attempts to improve and control the quality of institutional education and inspired by the Reggio Emilia framework, within which the documentation of each child’s behaviour and development was seen as the solution (see also Mahon, 2010: 182). Yet despite the differences in emphasis, reforms drawing on the idea of childhood as an investment can be seen as part of, and a means by which, global trends are created and strengthened so that they may appear as inevitable evolutionary trajectories. The inclusion of all parents in discussing their children’s behaviour in day care is also a holistic intervention in the lives of the families, who are delegated the obligation to socialize their children to the rules of the day care institution.