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Mathematics as the Trojan horse in Norwegian early childhood policy?

2018; Routledge; Volume: 20; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14794802.2018.1473162

1754-0178

Trude Fosse, Troels Lange, Magni Hope Lossius, Tamsin Meaney,

Children's Rights and Participation

Norwegian early childhood education policy seems to have begun to shift from emphasising playing and the development of the whole child to preparing children for school. This shift has been highlighted by the Norwegian early childhood sector as undesirable "schoolification". However, mathematics education is rarely mentioned in these discussions and its role has not been previously examined. In this paper, representations of mathematics education in both Norwegian and Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development policies are explored to determine whether mathematics education is being used as a Trojan horse in subtly shifting early childhood policy towards more teaching and away from playing. Our findings show that mathematics is more strongly linked to teaching and learning than it is to playing but the shift is subtle.