In the absence of public provision, many governments rely on the market to meet childcare demand. But who are the actors shaping this market? What work do they do to marketize care? And what does it mean for how childcare is provided? Based on an innovative theoretical framework and an in-depth study of the New Zealand childcare market, Gallagher examines the problematic growth of private, for-profit childcare. Opening the 'black box' of childcare markets to closer scrutiny, this book brings to light the complex political, social and economic dynamics behind childcare provisioning.

Written by two leading international experts, Early Childhood in the Anglosphere offers a unique comparison of early childhood education and care services, and parenting leave, across seven high-income Anglophone countries. Peter Moss and Linda Mitchell explore what these systems have in common, including the dominance of ‘childcare’ services, widespread privatisation and marketisation, and weak parenting leave. They highlight the substantial failings of these systems, and the causes and consequences of these failings. But this book is ultimately about hope, about how these failings might be made good through major changes. In other words, it is about transformation: why transformation is both necessary and possible at this particular time, what transformation might look like, and how it might happen. Part of that transformation concerns the need for new policies and structures, but even more it is about how the Anglosphere thinks about early childhood. The authors call for turning away from conceptualising early childhood services as `childcare' and marketised businesses selling commodities to parent-consumers; and for reconceptualising them as education imbued with an ethics of care, a public good available as a right to all children and families, and complemented by well-paid, individual entitlements to parenting leave. Using examples from the Anglosphere and beyond, and in a context of converging crises, the book argues that transformation of thinking, policies and structures is desirable and doable.

The viability, quality and sustainability of publicly supported early childhood education and care services is a lively issue in many countries, especially since the rights of the child imply equal access to provision for all young children. But equitable provision within childcare markets is highly problematic, as parents pay for what they can afford and parental income inequalities persist or widen. This highly topical book presents recent, significant research from eight nations where childcare markets are the norm. It also includes research about ‘raw’ and ‘emerging’ childcare markets operating with a minimum of government intervention, mostly in low income countries or post transition economies. Childcare markets compares these childcare marketisation and regulatory processes across the political and economic systems in which they are embedded. Contributions from economists, childcare policy specialists and educationalists address the question of what constraints need to be in place if childcare markets are to deliver an equitable service.

In the absence of public provision, many governments rely on the market to meet childcare demand. But who are the actors shaping this market? What work do they do to marketize care? And what does it mean for how childcare is provided? Based on an innovative theoretical framework and an in-depth study of the New Zealand childcare market, Gallagher examines the problematic growth of private, for-profit childcare. Opening the ‘black box’ of childcare markets to closer scrutiny, this book brings to light the complex political, social and economic dynamics behind childcare provisioning.

The late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries are commonly characterised as an age of ‘neoliberalism’ in which individualism, competition, free markets and privatisation came to dominate Britain’s politics, economy and society. This historical framing has proven highly controversial, within both academia and contemporary political and public debate. Standard accounts of neoliberalism generally focus on the influence of political ideas in reshaping British politics; according to this narrative, neoliberalism was a right-wing ideology, peddled by political economists, think-tanks and politicians from the 1930s onwards, which finally triumphed in the 1970s and 1980s. The Neoliberal Age? suggests this narrative is too simplistic. Where the standard story sees neoliberalism as right-wing, this book points to some left-wing origins, too; where the standard story emphasises the agency of think-tanks and politicians, this book shows that other actors from the business world were also highly significant. Where the standard story can suggest that neoliberalism transformed subjectivities and social lives, this book illuminates other forces which helped make Britain more individualistic in the late twentieth century. The analysis thus takes neoliberalism seriously but also shows that it cannot be the only explanatory framework for understanding contemporary Britain. The book showcases cutting-edge research, making it useful to researchers and students, as well as to those interested in understanding the forces that have shaped our recent past.

Children's leisure lives are changing, with increasing dominance of organised activities and screen-based leisure. These shifts have reconfigured parenting practices, too. However, our current understandings of these processes are race-blind and based mostly on the experiences of white middle-class families. Drawing on an innovative study of middle-class British Indian families, this book brings children's and parents' voices to the forefront and bridges childhood studies, family studies and leisure studies to theorise children's leisure from a fresh perspective. Demonstrating the salience of both race and class in shaping leisure cultures within middle-class racialised families, this is an invaluable contribution to key sociological debates around leisure, childhoods and parenting ideologies.

Due to the demand for flexible working hours and employees who are available around the clock, the time patterns of childcare and schooling have increasingly become a political issue. Comparing the development of different “time policies” of half-day and all-day provisions in a variety of Eastern and Western European countries since the end of World War II, this innovative volume brings together internationally known experts from the fields of comparative education, history, and the social and political sciences, and makes a significant contribution to this new interdisciplinary field of comparative study.

This book shows how reflexive debate enhances childhood research. Expert contributors explore researchers’ identities, roles, boundaries and ethical governance, and use empirical international examples from a range of child-related issues to challenge conventions and raise standards.

Understanding what ‘family’ means – and how best to support families – depends on challenging politicized assumptions that frame ‘ordinary’ families in comparison to an imagined problematic ‘other’. Learning from the perspectives of people who were in care in childhood, this innovative book helps redefine the concept of family. Linking two longitudinal studies involving young adults in England, it reveals important new insights into the diverse and dynamic complexity of family lives, identities and practices in time – through childhood and beyond. Paving the way for future policy and practice, this book makes an important contribution to the theorization of family in the 21st century.

In recent years there have been significant changes in education across the globe, largely as a result of changing demographics, technological developments, and increased globalization. Relatedly, the changing needs of societies and families, along with new research findings, provide new directions in early childhood education. Consequently, early childhood teachers today are faced with higher and more complex expectations to help ensure that their students achieve their full potential. Such expectations suggest that early childhood teachers should be professionals who are able to draw on a robust knowledge base in making educational decisions. It follows that teacher education programs should develop and implement innovative programs that can potentially enhance the quality of our future teachers. An awareness of pressing issues in the field of early childhood teacher education led the editors to develop this volume. The chapters in these two volumes bring together scholars from across the US and the globe who are interested in improving the quality of early childhood teacher education. The chapters present their experiences, perspectives, and lessons learned as they addressed some of the challenging issues concerning the education and preparation of future early childhood teachers. The various issues and perspectives from different states in the US or countries across the globe provide insights into current issues and dilemmas facing the field. The contributions of these scholars should inform the discourse on early childhood teacher education and help those who work with preservice teachers improve the quality of their work.