ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book aims to criticise how the neurosciences are used to shape early childhood education as commodity and investment of which people expect economic return. Neurosciences and brain images are increasingly popping up in documents of policy makers, but also of Non-governmental organizations, advocating for investments in early years. The book attempts to criticise how in certain socio-political context, specific form of Truth about early childhood emerges, how use of science plays crucial role in such constructions, and how these regimes of Truth – in turn – also shape specific power relations that render children and parents into objects of intervention. The dominance of economic issues obviously affected early childhood education. The book illustrates older knowledge-power paradigm that was studied by Michel Foucault from his early work on dominant discourses to his later and more subtle work on construction of knowledge of self.
