Queering Child/hood Policies: Canadian examples and perspectives.

This article examines how notions of 'child' and 'childhood' are produced in relation to recent early childhood policies in Ontario, Canada. It centers on an ongoing shift from Foucauldian disciplinary societies to Deleuzian control societies where it is argued that early childhood subjects (researchers, students, educators, administrators, and parents) are becoming less confined to specific spaces and tasks and are more controlled by the flows of knowledge, information, and communication. Current public policy debates are used to explore how early childhood education (ece) is becoming increasingly aligned with neoliberal calls for privatization, corporatization, and marketization. For instance, evidence-based practices and quality control indicators are quickly replacing developmental norms that have traditionally normalized and abnormalized children. The consequences of these transformations are examined using queer theory as a critical lens to explore how the identities of ECE subjects are deeply implicated in social, cultural, political, and economic factors - influences that are changing as a result of the shift from discipline to control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]