ABSTRACT
Neoliberalism has been on the horizon for decades. As a political and ideological tool, it has shaped ideas that we used to have different viewpoints or common understanding of. This chapter will do three things. First, it will show how the Icelandic preschool has become part of a new political horizon in which agencies and think tanks are powerhouses. Second, it will show how players other than preschool 118teachers are dismantling educators’ professional powers and acquiring control over the system. Finally, it will show how those players are enacting neoliberal ideology and using means developed or promoted by transnational institutions, such as new managerialism, deregulation, standardisation and accountability, to undermine the power of the profession and take over the curriculum and methods. Relevant literature and selected data are intertwined in each section. Recent indicators of neoliberalism in early childhood education are evident. Business-related think tanks have had a hand in changing both discourses as well as the legal system surrounding preschools, particularly in the areas of deregulation and accountability. This progression is just a part of larger and more complicated societal shift in which new social imagery based on neoliberalism has paved the road for change and established a new paradigm. Analysis of the development of two literacy policy documents indicates that preschool teachers have been set aside in favour of experts from other disciplines and how this has led to educational policy transformed from being play-based to being part of the newspeak based on standardised and measurable outcomes. Finally, the ideology behind these two policy documents indicates that the actors in the second policy paper are looking to transnational agencies to justify their claims and procedures.
