Metric Fixation and The Datafication of Early Childhood Education and Care

In this online reading group Professor Guy Roberts-Holmes will share his recent work around the implications of measurement and datafication cultures in early childhood.

Guy is Professor of Early Childhood Education at University College London, IOE. His research publications focus on two principal themes: 1) Use of an innovative Foucauldian analysis to critically investigate the relationship between neoliberalism’s central values of competition, calculation and choice and the construction of ‘quality’, ‘performativity’, ‘datafication’ and governance within Early Childhood Education (ECE). 2) Examination of Global Education Reform Movement’s (GERM) ‘market’ logic upon ECE teacher’s professional identities, pedagogy and children’s wellbeing.

Event programme (online)

4 – 4.30pm: Professor Guy Roberts-Holmes will share his recent scholarship with emphasis on the recent call for papers with colleagues from universities in the UK and Finland. The reading can be found at the following link:

• Roberts-Holmes, G., Paananen, A., Albin-Clark, J., Archer, N., & Chung, J. (2023) Metric fixation and the datafication of early childhood education and care. [Call for papers] Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood

https://journals.sagepub.com/pb-assets/cmscontent/CIE/Special%20Issue%20on%20Datafication-1669110182887.pdf.

4.30 – 5pm: We will have time for questions and a group discussion surrounding responses to the following questions:

• What are the implications of measurement and datafication for educators?
• How do these cultures influence early childhood education?
• What are the implications for children’s agency and rights?

Discover more about our Children’s Agency and Rights in Education Group