S1 E3: Problematizing School Readiness
Hello. I am Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw.
This is the third episode of Rethinking Childhoods. I have invited my colleague and dear friend, Dr. Kathleen Kummen, to speak about the concept of school readiness.
In previous episodes, we have been thinking and unraveling how the concept of childhood is closely connected with child development and, consequently, with the construction of a particular kind of society. In the following lecture, Kathleen expands for us these connections. She focuses specifically on how the discourse of school readiness connects to the making of a nation. She also highlights for us how school readiness produces docile subjects and perpetuates inequities within our society. We are calling this episode Problematizing School Readiness.
Welcome, Kathleen!
Hello. My name is Kathleen Kummen and I’m the chair of the school of Education and Childhood Studies at Capilano University in North Vancouver, British Columbia. Veronica has asked me today to talk about universal understandings of childhood. I selected the concept of readiness to think about how childhood, understood as purely preparation for the future, can enact and maintain inequities. I think about childhood in this way as a Once-Upon-a-Time story. Once upon a time, perhaps, there was a ready child…
But before I begin, I would like to acknowledge that I am recording this presentation from my home in Treaty No. 2 territory, in the province now known as Manitoba, which are the traditional and ancestral lands of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, and Dakota nations. Treaty No. 2 in Manitoba is also the homeland of many Metis people. I offer up this land acknowledgement to express my deep gratitude as an uninvited guest on these lands, and to honour the lands current and ancestral keepers. Further, my hope is that in acknowledging the land, I make visible the ongoing acts of resilience and resistance enacted on Treaty No. 2 lands. I celebrate and honour the resistance that led to the building and opening of “Freedom Road”, which allowed for the end of a boil water advisory for the Shoal Nation, whose waters for decade provided clean drinking water for Winnipeg. I acknowledge the resilience of the people of Grassy Narrows Nation, where 90% of the community continue to suffer from mercury poisoning. I share this information so that as we engage today, together, thinking about childhood, we remember that we do so on lands where, daily, children experience acts of ongoing systemic racism and state-sanctioned violence.
Carlton and Winsler (1999) write that “how a child becomes ready and exactly what readiness means are still a mystery” (p. 338). Within the field of education, researchers, scholars, and educators have ardently contested the notion of readiness for over a century. Scott-Little, Kagan, and Frelow (2006) explain that “the concept of readiness has been influenced by varying (and often competing) views of readiness.” (p.1) Although a universal definition of readiness has not been determined, readiness has become a central feature of policy development in early year services in an attempt to provide young children with a smooth transition to school and future academic success (Wesley & Buysse, 2003).
The sentiments of this discussion are captured by Dockett and Perry (2009) in the statement that “parents and educators anguish over whether or not a child is ready for school as they try to make decisions they believe will best support children.” (p. 20) In their time of anguish over the issue of readiness, parents and educators, at least in the province where I teach, might be relieved (if actually not surprised) that the current School Act (1996, c. 28) defines readiness, or the ability to enter school, as the following: being of school age; being a resident of the province; and having adequate classroom space and facilities as determined by the school board.
What is disturbing to me about this concept “readiness” is that it reduces the complexities of childhood to a single story of preparation for the future. A future that Moss and Petrie (2002) assert as “unpredictable” (p. 102). Are we preparing future adults with social, economic, political, and environmental context for which we cannot foresee?
The discourse of readiness must consider the question asked by Graue (1993): “Ready for what?” Do we want children to be, to quote Ralph Waldo Emerson (cited in Weiss 2002, 88), “always getting ready to live but never living”?
Social constructionist theory holds that knowledge is not a static truth but constructed in a community shaped by culture, history, gender, language, beliefs, and practices (Hacking, 1999). Since knowledge is always in a state of construction, it is never seen as whole, only partial, and understood as an interpretation rather than an objective fact or truth. Facts, writes Hacking, are the “consequences of ways in which we represent the world”. (p. 33)
From a social constructiveness perspective, readiness is not a definable or measurable characteristic of an individual. Readiness “is lived through others’ perceptions and interpretations” (Graue, Kroeger, and Brown 2002, p. 350). In this way, readiness is understood within a particular time and social context so that “the beliefs, expectations, understandings, and experiences of those in the school, and in the community in which the school exists, largely determine definitions of readiness for that context” (Dockett & Perry 2002, p. 71). With any discourse, readiness reflects the politics and knowledge of the time and the culture and place in which it is created. Readiness must then be conceptualized from the perspective in which it is being positioned at any given time.
In trying to understand readiness, professionals working with young children have been enchanted by the methods of positivist science, in particular the science of psychology (Cannella 1997; Dahlberg, Moss, and Pence 1999, 2007; MacDonald 2007). Rose (1998) writes that developmental science has allowed the child to become definable, quantifiable and classifiable. Science has provided measurable variables to determine the difference between a child, who is developing outside or below the universal norms, or according to those norms. This ability to assess a child’s developmental level through either chronological age or a skill assessment allows professionals working with young children to determine a child’s readiness for school.
What is even more concerning is that child development has created a discourse of childhood from which social policy has been constructed. Rose (1998) writes that the child through developmental psychology is seen as a universal concept that can be “known objectively” (p.118). And if we take that seriously, it means that we are using scientific knowledge as if it was fact to determine the lives of young children.
What’s troubling about this is the universal understanding of development is based on research conducted primarily on children living in the western regions of the world. Scholars such as Arnett (2008), Pence and Hix-Small (2007) write that research based on the western regions of the world disregards the experience of more than 90% of the world’s children. This contests the ability of science to generalize child development findings to a world population on the basis of its own criteria for scientific validity. It appears that readiness is not a neutral, objective concept based on natural developmental progression, but an assessment that privileges one way of understanding childhood over another.
A number of challenges have been raised against the notion of readiness as a universal set of indicators that demonstrates a child’s readiness to enter school. As this perspective pathologizes individual children and communities of children who do not conform to the universal standards (Phoenix, cited in Burman, 2008). <Burman writes – please see Burman, 2017, 2020> If we take seriously [Erica] Burman’s assertion [propositions], cultural and economic inequities are evident in number of studies, suggesting that children from particular ethnic groups and lower socio-economic groups are over identified as not yet ready to enter kindergarten.
The goal of the government of British Columbia ( Strategic Plan 2006/07-2008/0), where I’m from, is to have “the best educated and most literate jurisdiction on the continent.” This vision is not without some merit and does speak to the province’s commitment to children and youth; yet, to quote Foucault (cited in MacNaughton 2005, p. 201), “my point is not [that] everything is bad but that everything is dangerous.” The concept of readiness is not inherently a bad thing, but the implications of readiness as a single story of childhood, one of preparation, void of critical reflection, can be dangerous.
I would like to consider some alternative perspectives that seek to transform social policy on readiness by imagining childhood as complex and contradictory. MacNaughton (2003) writes that a transforming perspective aims to change in order to create something new or different. This view implies that social policy as it relates to readiness needs to challenge existing injustices so to create a more just and equitable society. I would argue that children need to be viewed as “human beings” rather than “human becomings” (Qvortrup 2008, p. 4). Moss and Petrie (2002) write that “each time we use expressions such as ‘children are our future’ we colonize their lives and make them instruments of our redemption” (p. 102).
Readiness privileges childhood [the child] as of a future adult or citizen, and marginalizes the child’s value in the present. I would like to suggest that in education we have an obligation to address the child as a citizen of today and provide children with opportunities to reach their potential on the basis of that citizenship and not some future value. Furthermore, I would argue that, by presenting the future as a known commodity, we fail to recognize that the future is unpredictable and that will hold circumstances that we cannot anticipate (Moss & Petrie, 2002). We only need to look at the current example of the life in a pandemic to understand this.
Further, Moss and Petrie suggests that in preparing children for a predetermined future, we risk seeing learning as a singular pathway that limits the possibilities of diversity in the future. If we are to value diversity, then we would maximize the possibility that future citizens will have a diverse set of skills and knowledges. And children who learn in an environment that values diversity and multiple perspectives might be more open to alternative ways of seeing and thinking about issues and problems that that will confront them in the 21st century.
“Throughout our everyday interactions, – Robinson and Diaz (2006) write, – we speak and perform discourse into existence” (p. 30). By speaking of readiness, we bring into being the ready and unready child and reinscribe the inequities associated with that binary. Transforming social policy and education to <create> a more just society asks us to think differently in order to change something. By removing the discourse of readiness from childhood, we challenge discrimination and make visible the effects of discrimination on the learner. By the elimination of readiness, we invite those who work with children, to quote Davis (cited in MacNaughton 2003, p. 77) to “build their own pictures of children as learners and capture specific children, in specific circumstances, at specific times”.
Giving up the discourse of readiness evident in current social policy also requires moving away from employing child development as the sole source of expertise in understanding children. The removal of child development would make room for the voices of other cultures, other disciplines, and other understandings that have been silenced or marginalized as a result of the hegemony of child development (MacNaughton, 2003).
If we disrupt the dominant discourses of developmental theory, including the discourses of readiness, then childhood might more easily be recognized as a social construct in which children are not a universal entity but complex, diverse, and at times contradictory human beings (Dahlberg, Moss & Pence, 2007).
Working with an image of children as complex and unknown individuals opens ups the possibility of multiple ways of pedagogical practice. This image also constructs an image of an educator who creates spaces that are ready to welcome children and not spaces for readying. Rinaldi (2006, p, 125) writes that “this requires a ‘powerful’ teacher, the only kind of teacher suitable for <…> ‘powerful’ child.” A powerful educator, Rinaldi explains, is open to the unexpected and engages in learning with the child as a researcher to be open to possibilities in the project of education. The task of the powerful educator is to “create a context in which children’s curiosity, theories and research are legitimated and listened to, a context in which children feel comfortable and confident, motivated and respected in their existential and cognitive paths and processes” (p. 126). The question of readiness seems to be extraneous in a classroom in which powerful individuals come together to co-construct understanding and meaning. Moss, Dillon, and Statham (2000, p. 250) refer to this image as a “rich” child, as opposed to a child in need, who is “born equipped to lead, neither asking nor needing adult permission to start learning.” In response to the image of the rich child, Moss and Petrie (2002) envision spaces where children and adults come together as a community to construct relationships as co-constructors of knowledges.
Competent and complex children must be recognized as “experts of their own lives”, write Dockett and Perry (2005, p. 4), and adults should be seen as often having “limited understanding of children’s lives and experiences”. A transforming position moves children from the position of “objects of inquiry”, write Dockett & Perry (2002), to contributors to research. In a study in which children were viewed as experts on the discourses of readiness, Dockett and Perry (2005) asked young children these questions: What did you need to know when you started school? What is important for them to know about this school? The significance of this study lies not just in what the children said, but also in the fact that their opinions were deemed worthy. The research repositioned children as competent and knowledgeable actors in the readiness process.
My intention in this presentation is not to condemn the project of readiness, but to challenge it and to invite conversations that make visible the possible dangers inherent in a project based on a Western scientific conceptualization of “the child,” as one that is primarily concerned with the future (Lather, 2007). Scott (1998, p. 95) labels projects with a future focus and whose authority is derived from scientific knowledge as high modernism. The high modernist project is problematic, Scott argues, because it has a “tendency to disallow other competing sources of judgment.”
Readiness, I contend, needs to be understood as a complex, diverse, and highly problematic concept. Readiness should not be heard as a single story in which children are seen as ready or not ready. As a social construct, readiness must be interpreted from multiple perspectives and not just from a measurable set of characteristics within a child. By inviting into the conversation other understandings of readiness, we might be surprised and inspired to discover infinite possibilities for welcoming children into schools.
You just heard a lecture on school readiness by Kathleen Kummen. If you want to learn more about Kathleen’s work, you can check out the Capilano University School of Education and Childhood Studies website . You can follow Kathleen on Twitter @KKummen.
As always, notes from this episode are available at our website.
This is Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw. You can follow me on Twitter @vpacinik. You are welcome to post a review of the episode in OWL.
Thank you so much for joining me, this week, and until the next episode!
Readings suggestions and references for this episode:
Arnett, J.J. 2008. “The Neglected 95%: Why American Psychology Needs to Become Less American.” American Psychologist 63, 7: 602-14. http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca
Burman, E. 2008. Developments: Child, Image, Nation. London: Routledge.
Burman, E. 2017. Deconstructing developmental psychology (Third Edition). London: Routledge.
Burman, E. 2020. Developments: Child, image, nation (Second Edition). London: Routledge.
Cannella, G. 1997. Deconstructing Early Childhood Education: Social Justice and Revolution. New York: Peter Lang.
Carlton, M., and A. Winsler. 1999. “School Readiness: The Need for a Paradigm Shift.” School Psychology Review 28, 3: 338-51. http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.library. uvic.ca/
Dahlberg, G., P. Moss, and A. Pence. 1999. Beyond Quality in Early Childhood Care and Education: Beyond Quality. London: Routledge.
Dahlberg, G., P. Moss, and A. Pence. 2007. Beyond Quality in Early Childhood Care and Education: Postmodern Perspectives. 2nd ed. London: Routledge
Dockett, S., and B. Perry. 2002. “Who’s Ready for What? Young Children Starting School.” Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood 3, 1: 67-89. http://0-ww.wwwords.co.uk.library.capilanou.ca/
Dockett, S., and B. Perry. 2005. “‘You Need to Know How to Play Safe’: Children’s Experiences of Starting School.” Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood 6, 1: 4-18. http://0-ww.wwwords.co.uk.library.capilanou.ca/.
Dockett, S., and B. Perry. 2009. “‘Readiness for School: A Relational Construct.” Australian Journal of Early Childhood 34, 1: 20-26. http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/
Graue, M.E. 1993. Ready for What? Constructing Meanings of Readiness for Kindergarten. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Graue, M.E., J.K. Kroeger, and C.P. Brown. 2002. “Living the ‘Gift of Time.’” Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood 2, 2: 338-53. http://0-ww.wwwords.co.uk.library.capilanou.ca/
Hacking, I. 1999. The Social Construction of What? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Lather, P. 2007. Getting Lost: Feminist Eorts toward a Double(d) Science. Albany: State University of New York Press
MacDonald, M. 2007. “Developmental Theory and Post-Modern Thinking in Early Childhood Education.” Canadian Children 32, 2: 8-10.
MacNaughton, G. 2003. Shaping Early Childhood: Learners, Curriculum, and Contexts. Berkshire: Open University Press.
MacNaughton, G. 2005. Doing Foucault in Early Childhood Studies: Applying Poststructural Ideas. London: Routledge
Moss, P., J. Dillon, and J. Statham. 2000. “The ‘Child in Need’ and the ‘Rich Child’: Discourse, Construction, and Practice.” Critical Social Policy 20, 2: 233-54
Moss, P., and P. Petrie. 2002. From Child’s Services to Children’s Space: Public Policy, Children, and Childhood. London: RoutledgeFalmer.
Pence, A., and H. Hix-Small. 2007. “Global Children in the Shadow of the Global Child.” International Journal of Educational Policy, Research, and Practice: Reconceptualizing Childhood Studies 8, 1: 83-100. http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/
Qvortrup, J. 2008. Childhood Matters: Social Theory, Practice, and Politics. London: Avebury Publishing
Rinaldi, C. 2006. In Dialogue with Reggio Emilia. London: Routledge.
Robinson, K., and C. Diaz. 2006. Diversity and Difference in Early Childhood Education. London: Open University Press
Rose, N. 1998. Inventing Ourselves: Psychology, Power, and Personhood. New York: Cambridge University Press
Scott, J.C. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Scott-Little, C., S. Kagan, and V. Frelow. 2006. “Conceptualization of Readiness and the Content of Early Learning Standards: The Intersection of Policy and Research?” Early Childhood Research Quarterly 21: 152-73.
Weiss, J. 2002. Take the Ride of Your Life: Shift Gears for More Balance, Growth, and Joy. Scottsdale: Bloomfield Press.
Wesley, P., and V. Buysse. 2003. “Making Meaning of School Readiness in Schools and Communities.” Early Childhood Research Quarterly 18: 351-75.
Created By: Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw
Edited and Produced By: Jacob Ketchabaw