Who learns in Early Childhood Education? the school teaching how to be a good mother

Abstract

This article aims at problematizing, through the use of post-structural Gender and Cultural Studies, the relationship between teachers and mothers of Early Childhood Education children. The paper claims that discourses of pedagogy, medicine, and developmental psychology, which are the foundations of teacher education, institute not only teachers and students’ subject positions and identities, but also particular forms of maternity. Though cultural analysis the teachings on maternity, which are both produced and reproduced in school relations, are made problematic. The data collection involved observations of an Early Childhood Education group class. Particular attention was given to the discursive practices involved in the teacher-mothers relationship, which materialize in the notes sent to mothers by teachers and in the interactions between them at the beginning and at the end of the school day, in particular on the Mother’s day week . In despite of the current emphasis on family/mother involvement in education, the mothers were only called by teachers and the school in particular and distinct instances. In fact, the participation of schools in valuing and delimiting particular forms of maternity practices is quite intense and the ‘good mother’ representations are defined in subtle daily life school conversations, where familiar scenes are evoked. The relationship between mothers and the school/teachers have important pedagogical effects and the article claims that it is possible to see the schools teaching the mothers to act within the limits of an institutionally sanctioned maternity while teaching the children how their mothers should behave.