The fifty years following the Second World War saw a huge growth in the provision of care and education for young New Zealand children: whereas some 2000 children were attending free kindergartens in 1944, there were 170,000 in early childhood education by 1999, representing about 95 percent of children aged three and four. For Maori, early childhood education institutions emerged in the 1960s, but evolved dramatically with Te Kohanga Reo in the 1980s.

Politics in the Playground is a lively account of early childhood education and care in postwar New Zealand. It follows Helen May’s fascinating study Discovery of Early Childhood (1997), which traced the origins of institutional care for young children in Europe and New Zealand.

The centrality of children in New Zealand’s social history makes this book a remarkable record of social movements. The postwar search for security, the radicalism of the 1960s and 1970s, the impact of feminism, and the role of the state in social issues – all are charted through their role in early childhood education. And the language of the debate shifts from social progress in the middle of the century to the economic terminology of the last decades.

This is an account of critical issues for children that will interest parents along with policy makers, teachers, and students.

Note: This title is now published by Otago University Press.

Endorsements                                              

'A brilliant piece of research and documentary history.' Hawkes Bay Today

'Immensely useful as an academic text on the evolution of New Zealand education ideology … written in an accessible style and could appeal to anyone who has participated in the early childhood sector over the last 50 years.' Evening Post

'This book is a must for anyone who wants to influence early childhood education policy development.' Playcentre Journal

Contents                                                       

Acknowledgements
Introduction: Investing in the early years

Part One / Growth and expectation 1940s–1960s

1. Psychology of freedom
      Understanding children / Benefits of play 
      Free play at kindergarten / ‘I play and I grow’ at
      playcentre
      Teaching mothers and motherly teachers / Playway at
      school
      Permissive messages to mothers / Parent campaigns
2. Psychology of disorder
      (Dys) functional families / Working mothers and
      maternal deprivation
      The backyard growth of childcare / Regulating childcare
      Blaming mothers / Parent campaigns
3. Getting ahead
      The ‘problem’ with education for Maori children
      Sylvia Ashton-Warner: ‘the little ones’ / Maori children at
      preschool
      Combating disadvantage with a head start / Revolution
      in learning
      Te Kohanga: a chance to be equal

Part Two / Challenge and constraint 1960s–1980s

4. Politics of early childhood
      The end of the feminine mystique / Children have rights
      too
      Who gets to preschool? / Liberating preschoolers
      National constituency for early childhood
      The year of the child – the world of the child
5. Demanding childcare
      Campaign tactics / Attachment and separation
      Activism and advocacy / Working women
      ‘Story of a recommendation’
6. Working with children
      Rocking the cradle / Career at playcentre
      ‘Brought to mind’ in family daycare
      To ‘teach’ in kindergarten / To ‘work’ in childcare
7. Indigenous rights and minority issues
      Maori self-determination / Te Kohanga Reo: outside the
      mainstream
      Kura Kaupapa: transition to school / Early childhood
      responses
      Pacific Islands early childhood centres

Part Three / State interest and devolution 1980s–1990s

8. Winds of reform
      Political Shifts / Against the odds / A foot in the door
      Implementing Before Five / National directions
      Parents as First Teachers / The kindergarten flagship
9. Measures of quality
      Quality discourses / Who gets to preschool now?
      Weaving Te Whariki / Qualified to teach / After Before
      Five
References
Abbreviations
Glossary
Index