ABSTRACT
Recent years have seen extensive developments in policy, curriculum, and practice in early childhood education and care (ECEC) worldwide, and in Ireland at present government policy seems to be moving the sector towards a publicly funded approach. Echoing decades-old discussions in other educational sectors, public ECEC is often seen as a form of education that is funded by public means, accountable to the public, and available to everyone (Biesta et al. 2022). While this chapter is rooted in the Irish context, the exploration of conceptualisations of publicness in ECEC speaks to fundamental understandings of equitable affordances within educational domains. This chapter unpacks the tensions associated with the concept of a ‘public’ system, the notion of ownership, and how ‘value’ is viewed and visible within Irish culture through the lenses of children, parents, educators, communities, and policy-makers. We further highlight the elements necessary for a truly public system to exist in Ireland, problematising the idea that ‘publicly funded’ and ‘public’ ECEC are one and the same, and so this chapter offers an exploration of what a ‘new publicness’ might look like for ECEC within the Irish context and beyond.
