Play a new control technology or a hope for childhood pedagogy? A critical discourse analysis of play in Danish policy and pedagogical practice.

In the Nordic countries, Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) policies have been developed within the context of the welfare state and are often referred to as the Nordic Model. A model that is characterized as child-centered and holistic based on children's participation, democracy, autonomy and freedom. The Nordic model works as an example of good pedagogical practice, and as a benchmark for other countries (Hännikäinen, 2016; Karila, 2012). At the same time, the Nordic countries have been increasingly influenced to develop, standardize and redefine their policies in the day care area in relation to transnational strategies on lifelong learning from e.g. OECD’s Early Childhood Education and Care Programs (Krejsler, 2012; Schmidt, 2017; Schmidt, 2018). Such initiatives have resulted in national differences and variations in the organization of the day care area (Karila, 2012). This can be illustrated with the national pedagogical curricula, which both Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden have revised in 2016-18 (Schmidt & Slott, 2021).
Across the differences, children’s play appears as a common and essential element in the Nordic model. Using Danish ECEC policy as an example I will in this presentation, uncover and show how children’s play is determined – both in policy and in the pedagogical practice. Based on a policy-anthropological approach combined with a critical discourse analysis, we analyze key documents that relate to the Danish policy process regarding revision of the Day Care Act and the national curriculum (2016-2018). I will show how play is qualitatively given different meanings, and linked to both learning, development and bildung (Schmidt & Slott, 2021).
Due to policy-anthropological methodology, the next step is to follow policy into day-care practice. We have received support from BUPL - The Danish National Federation of Early Childhood Teachers and Youth Educators to launch a study of day care pedagogue’s understandings and language of play. The study is based on a questionnaire survey among Danish pedagogues, video observations of children's play and focus group interviews with pedagogues. The study takes place from January 2020 to July 2021. Empirical data from this ongoing study, together with the discourse analysis and a literature review in Danish play theory, could be part of a larger Nordic collaboration to study policy movements and pedagogical understandings of children’s play. To form a new hope for the Nordic model.