On the surface and below : a genealogical look at the waves of evaluation in early childhood education and care

This is a self-archived version of an original article. This version may differ from the original in pagination and typographic details. Author(s): Title: Year: Version: Copyright: Rights: Rights url: Please cite the original version: CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ On the surface and below : a genealogical look at the waves of evaluation in early childhood education and care © 2024 the Authors Published version Siippainen, Anna; Pitkänen, Hannele Siippainen, A., & Pitkänen, H. (2024). On the surface and below : a genealogical look at the waves of evaluation in early childhood education and care. Journal of Education Policy, Early online. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2024.2344099 2024 Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=tedp20 Journal of Education Policy ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/tedp20 On the surface and below: a genealogical look at the waves of evaluation in early childhood education and care Anna Siippainen & Hannele Pitkänen To cite this article: Anna Siippainen & Hannele Pitkänen (25 Apr 2024): On the surface and below: a genealogical look at the waves of evaluation in early childhood education and care, Journal of Education Policy, DOI: 10.1080/02680939.2024.2344099 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2024.2344099 © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Published online: 25 Apr 2024. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 55 View related articles View Crossmark data On the surface and below: a genealogical look at the waves of evaluation in early childhood education and care Anna Siippainen a and Hannele Pitkänen b a Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland; b Faculty of Education and Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland ABSTRACT The rise of evaluation and data in education and education policy is a trend manifesting across a wide variety of policy contexts, holding in its grip national and global policies, with impacts that reach the level of individual children, teachers, and their subjectivities. Earlier research has mainly focused on the phenomenon in neoliberal contexts. This article presents a case study of Finnish early childhood education and care (ECEC) policy discourse built on a tradition of social democratic political rationality and egalitarian values. By utilizing Evert Vedung’s metaphor of evaluation waves, we examine how the evaluation trend has influenced the Finnish ECEC policy, which has traditionally been skeptical toward the assessment of individual children’s learning and skills and the production and use of data for accountability purposes. In the genealogical reading of ECEC curricula and policy documents from 2002–2021 as data, we identify three discursive practices – partnership, pedagogization, and evidence wave – that have socio-historically contributed to the formation of the present conception of evaluation in the Finnish ECEC policy discourse. Our genealogical reading also reveals a movement toward international trends – evaluating the individual child’s skills – especially through the evidence wave. ARTICLE HISTORY Received 10 July 2023 Accepted 12 April 2024 KEYWORDS Assessment; evaluation; early childhood education and care; genealogy; Vedung Introduction In the sphere of prevailing advanced liberal political rationality and related educational policy practices, evaluation, assessment, and data in their diverse forms have gained a self-evident and almost unquestioned role in governing education, education policymaking, and societies at large (Dahler-Larsen, 2011; Grimaldi, 2019; Rose, 1999; Smith, 2016). This trend, closely rooted in neoliberal education policy reforms combining policy technologies of market, managerialism, and performativity (Ball 2003), was first adopted in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia in the 1980s and since then CONTACT Anna Siippainen [email protected] Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University, Kalevantie 4, 33014, Finland; Hannele Pitkänen [email protected] Faculty of Education and Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, Seminaarinkatu 15, Jyväskylä 40014, Finland The authors are equally responsible for the writing process. JOURNAL OF EDUCATION POLICY https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2024.2344099 © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent. increasingly by education systems across the globe (Verger et al., 2019). It has been widely discussed under ‘governing by numbers’ (e.g. Ball, 2018), governing ‘at distance’ through data and evaluations (e.g. Ozga et al., 2011), the culture of performativity (e.g. Ball, 2003; Gore et al., 2023; Holloway and Brass, 2018) and testing (Smith, 2016), datafication of education and education governance (Bradbury and Roberts-Holmes, 2017; Hardy, 2019, 2022; Jarke and Breiter, 2019), and more generally under the evaluation society (Dahler-Larsen, 2011; also Furubo and Stame, 2019; Vedung, 2010). Following these, Lingard and Sellar (2013, 652) suggested that (evaluation) data and numbers have become naturalized, even as ‘a most sensible medium for thinking about teaching and learning’. The evaluation and data trends seem to circulate and travel across education systems. It is strongly promoted by powerful transnational policy actors, such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), using soft governance techniques, such as policy comparisons and recommendations on evaluation in their transnational policy formation (see, e.g. Ozga et al., 2011). However, this manifests differently depending on the national and local histories and social and political contexts of education systems (e.g. Kauko et al., 2018; Verger et al., 2019), and different levels of education from early childhood education (Bradbury and Roberts-Holmes, 2017) to higher education (see e.g. Ball, 2003; Holloway and Brass, 2018; Piattoeva, 2015). This article is motivated by the scientific curiosity about how this trend, widely reported in contexts following neoliberal policy rationality (e.g. Bradbury, 2019a, b, Roberts-Holmes and Bradbury, 2016), has come to be in the Finnish early childhood education and care (ECEC) policy discourse. Acknowledging the Finnish traditions of welfarist social democratic education and early education policies and child-centered ECEC pedagogy that emphasize play over children’s educational performance and assessment (Karila, 2012), the question evidently resonates far beyond the Finnish context. Although the Finnish educational and social policy context differs from the neoliberal contexts discussed in earlier research, the analysis of the Finnish case provides additional nuances on the interplay between local histories and practices and global policy influences in the shaping of the raveling discourses. Therefore, following genealogical methodology and by using Finnish ECEC curricula and policy documents since 2002 as data, we direct our scientific curiosity toward the aims of shedding light on the kinds of entities and issues that policy has contributed to the increased importance of data and evaluation 1 in the history of Finnish ECEC policy discourse. We consider divergence from the former situations in which (1) individual children or their skills are not evaluated (Act 540/2018), and in which (2) the education policy has been skeptical of evaluations and the production and use of data, especially for accountability purposes (Kauko et al., 2020; Sahlberg, 2011; Wallenius, 2020). (Data) governance in early childhood education At the core of the ‘new mode of data driven rationality’ (Sellar, 2015) – the current phenomenon around the evaluation and data – lies the basic assumption that significant improvement and betterment can be achieved through and by evaluation and data, especially when accompanied by the mechanisms of accountability. This rationality has penetrated into the discourses and practices of education and education governance from 2A. SIIPPAINEN AND H. PITKÄNEN transnational to national and local levels (Siippainen et al., 2023; Ozga et al., 2011; also Sahlberg, 2016; Verger et al., 2019). Accordingly, it is rooted in the discourses prevalent in transnational organizations such as the OECD (e.g. 2013) and is clearly manifested in the current European educational policy discourse, highlighting the importance of the continuous processes of quality assurance and evaluation (QAE), operated at each level of education systems, in improving the quality of education. This is expected to raise the global competitiveness of economies and, therefore, assure better future prospects for European societies (Kauko et al., 2020; also European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2015). Manifesting the same evaluation-driven political rationality, evaluation and data have entered the everyday lives of educational institutions and the work of the professionals and children attending these institutions worldwide. Numerous studies have reported on the steady growth of evaluations aimed at inspecting the performance of schools and teachers and the related increase in demands for schools and professionals to continuously evaluate themselves and their practices and collect data in the name of continuous improvement of quality (Ball, 2016; Garver, 2020; Holloway and Brass, 2018). This demand is not only directed toward professionals but also affects children who are subjected to continuous testing of their performance (Bradbury, 2012; 2019b). The results of these evaluations are not only used to track and evaluate children’s individual learning outcomes or progress but are also reasoned as an indication of the effectiveness of the teaching and educational institution, and finally as a means of improving the standards and quality of education (Bradbury, 2012; Kauko and Salokangas, 2015; Oosterhoff et al., 2023; Sahlberg, 2016). Increasingly, children are expected to evaluate and monitor themselves and their own learning (Pitkänen, 2022a). Thus, they are expected to improve their learning results and performance (Andrade, 2019; Andrade and Valtcheva, 2009; Boud and Soler, 2016) to become better learners (Wyatt-Smith and Adie, 2021) and future citizens having ability to critical self-reflection and continuous self-improvement – required in the global knowledge economy (Pitkänen, 2022a). The above instances on evaluation partly indicate the extent to which the evaluation and data-driven rationality currently operate in governing and shaping policymaking from local to transnational levels and in the everyday lives of individuals and groups in educational institutions and societies at large. Using Foucault’s (1997) terms, the idea of governing and improving education, learning, and educated subjects through the diverse forms and techniques of evaluation and data has become a practice of truth and power of our present. How evaluation and data govern the policies and everyday practices of education has become a major topic of research and has been extensively studied at different levels of education across education systems. The main message of these studies, following Ball’s (2003, 2016) wording, is that these reforms ‘does not simply change what people, as educators, scholars, and researchers do, it changes who they are.’ For example, Holloway and Brass (2018) indicated how market-oriented and managerially based techniques and evaluation and accountability policies not only introduce new kinds of practices to education and teaching but indeed have an impact on ‘teachers’ subjective existence’ and professional identity. Although trends in evaluation and data governance have been widely acknowledged and studied from basic to higher education, they remain understudied and overlooked in JOURNAL OF EDUCATION POLICY 3 the field of ECEC (Jarke and Breiter, 2019). We argue that this applies especially in the case of countries and education systems that have been traditionally non-compliant to neoliberal political rationality: education systems swimming against the global tide (see Kauko et al., 2020; Pitkänen, 2023) – the global education reform movement (GERM) (Sahlberg, 2016). The GERM, albeit manifested in context-specific and history-related ways across countries and education systems (Verger et al., 2019), shares some fundamental underpinnings, such as the adoption of market-based and managerial solutions, and highlights evaluation and data in organizing and governing education. For example, policy technologies, such as school choice, school autonomy, competition, market-based accountability, and the related use of quality evaluation and standardized large-scale testing, are often found at the core of the GERM (Sahlberg, 2016; Verger et al., 2019). Thus, existing research focusing on governing through evaluation and data in ECEC has often, albeit not exclusively (e.g. Paananen, 2017), found their research context in the countries following the GERM and ‘neoliberal political rationality.’ For example, there is an extensive and pioneering body of literature on datafication on ECEC in the context of England (Bradbury, 2019a; Bradbury and Roberts-Holmes, 2017; Pierlejewski, 2020; Roberts-Holmes, 2015; Roberts-Holmes and Bradbury, 2016). In line with the research examining the phenomenon of the evaluation and data in the other levels of education – in primary and secondary education (Ball, 2003; Garver, 2020; Holloway 2019; Holloway and Brass, 2018; O’Neill, 2015) and higher education (Piattoeva, 2015; Su, 2022; Selwyn and Gašević, 2020; Williamson et al., 2020), these studies have indicated the fundamental impact of increased reliance on evaluation and data on the ECEC policy, educational practice, experience, and subjectivities of those involved. Further, Bradbury (2019a) reported on the ECEC-specific impacts of these policies, such as the increased formalization and related schoolification of ECEC and learning of young children. ECEC has become part of a chain of evaluations that evaluates children from ECEC until the end of school (Roberts-Holmes and Bradbury, 2016) and all the way into working life. These changes are not purely reforms that change educational practices and ways of doing things in educational institutions. Instead, they have fundamental impacts on both children and professionals, as they constitute and call for ‘data-driven subjectivities for both teacher and child’ (Bradbury, 2019a, 7). Therefore, the evaluations and data promoted by reforms not only describe children but also, describe, shape, and constitute children’s identities, feelings, and experiences according to prevailing rationalities (Ball, 2003, 2016; Holloway, 2019; Holloway and Brass, 2018; O’Neill, 2015; Sellar, 2015). In this article, we argue that the evaluation, data-and performance-driven policies, practices, and rationalities in ECEC are not limited to contexts following neoliberal political rationality but are increasingly experienced in those traditionally committed to social democratic political rationality and egalitarian values such as Nordic countries (e.g. Camphuijsen et al., 2021). Second, they not only exceed education that has selective function but also ECEC, which has traditionally emphasized play rather than educational results and performance. To pinpoint these, the article aims to provide a historically informed account of how this trend of evaluation and data has come to be in the case of Finnish ECEC, which has traditionally swum against global GERM and emphasized children’s participation and play instead of learning results. Employing a poststructural genealogical methodology, this article analyzes the socio-historical constitution and mobilization of our current understanding, a current practice of truth, where evaluation 4A. SIIPPAINEN AND H. PITKÄNEN and data play a significant role in the governing education and subjectivities of those involved. We examine the descent and mobilization of the rationality and practices of governing by evaluation and data in Finnish ECEC policy discourse, which has its sociohistorical roots deeply in the socio-democratic welfare tradition. Our research question is: How has the present conception of evaluation been socio-historically shaped in the Finnish early childhood education policy discourse? Finnish ECEC policy and evaluation in the international framework Following the traditional Nordic welfare policy model, Finland can be characterized as a social service state. This means that social services, including education and childcare services, are universally provided and available to all (Anttonen and Sipilä, 2000). In 1972, Finland implemented daycare as a public social service, providing childcare for working parents, especially mothers. In the mid-1990s, daycare was made an unconditional right for each child (Act 882/1995). Since 2015, daycare services have been called ‘early childhood education and care’ (Act 540/2018), reflecting the changing policy attention toward the child’s right to attend quality ECEC 2 (see Siippainen et al., 2022). The change from daycare to ECEC also reflects the international trend, in which daycare and ECEC are increasingly considered an education and accordingly a part of the process of lifelong learning (Act 540/2018; FNAE, 2021; Karila 2012). As with the education system in general, Finnish ECEC has recently faced increasing demands for evaluation. Currently, ECEC and other educational institutions and service providers – mostly municipalities but especially in the field of ECEC also private organizations – are required by law to conduct self-evaluations and participate in external evaluations. The requirements for self-evaluation and external evaluations were first introduced in basic education in the 1990s as part of New Public Managementoriented reforms, including the decentralization and deregulation of education governance. In the reform, the traditional school inspection system was abolished and replaced by demands for self-evaluations and national sample-based external evaluations. These evaluation requirements were adopted by the Basic Education Act (628/1998) and similarly, in ECEC in the mid-2010s, by the Early Education Act (540/2018), currently constituting the main core and elements of Finnish ECEC evaluation policy and practice. The current self-evaluation requirement applies to education providers, schools, and ECEC institutions. However, there are no predetermined national models for selfevaluation. Instead, education providers, schools, and ECEC institutions have great autonomy in conducting the required self-evaluations. The Finnish Education Evaluation Centre (FINEEC) is responsible for the external evaluation of education, and educational providers are required to participate by law. FINEEC carries out evaluations at all educational levels, and with the Act on Early Childhood Education (540/2018), FINEEC has started evaluating ECEC. Evaluations carried out by FINEEC are based on the principle of enhancement-led evaluation (FINEEC, 2022) emphasizing the trust between the implementer and participant and the education provider’s responsibility to enhance its activities. Therefore, instead of a culture of inspection resting on hierarchical monitoring, control, and disciplinary power, the enhancement-led evaluation culture manifests the operation of soft power relying on the self-governance of the governed (see Pitkänen, 2023). To build the capacities for the self-governance of local JOURNAL OF EDUCATION POLICY 5 ECEC providers and actors, FINEEC, also responsible for supporting the development of the local quality evaluation culture (Act 580/2015), has published guidelines and recommendations for local self-evaluation and quality management (Vlasov et al., 2019). Recently, FINEEC, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Culture (MOE), has implemented a digital quality evaluation system that can be used to collect information and produce analyses that support the development of ECEC at both the local and national levels. As indicated above, today, the evaluation system and practices in ECEC and other levels of education share many common principles and policy grounds. Despite this and the current emphasis on ECEC as one phase in formal education, there is a major difference in the evaluation culture between ECEC and school institutions. Whereas one of the main foci of evaluation in education in general is on pupils’ performance and skills (FNAE, 2021), the evaluation in ECEC, in its short institutional history in Finland, has focused on pedagogical activities and learning environments instead of the individual child’s skills and learning. It remains to be seen whether this Finnish policy principle remains intact, as the trend in some countries heads toward the early assessment of child skills and competences (Bradbury, 2019a, b; Bradbury and Roberts-Holmes, 2017; Gitz-Johansen, 2011). The same question concerns the principle of local autonomy in self-evaluation and quality management. The principle is increasingly being questioned and faced by the rising policy pressures toward more standardized local evaluation and quality management practices, therefore resembling international policy trends (Finnish Government, 2021). In these two senses, the Finnish evaluation policy in ECEC has run counter to the global GERM and its standardized, data-driven, performance-focused rationalities and related practices (Bradbury, 2019a; Roberts-Holmes, 2015; Selwyn, 2015). Thus, the potential for policy transformation makes the Finnish ECEC policy discourse an interesting case for analysis. Research material The study used Finnish ECEC curricula and policy documents from 2002–2021. This was the period when the idea of evaluation entered and became consolidated into the studied national-level ECEC policy discourse. At the national level, evaluation was strongly introduced in the policy process (MOS 2002), leading to the preparation of the first National Core Curriculum for Early Childhood Education in 2003 (Stakes, 2003/2005). The selection of the research material was inclusive of all key legislation and its preparatory governmental documents, as well as curricula documents, during the research period, representing the very core of the studied Finnish ECEC evaluation policy discourse. The research documents (n = 13), which are described in Figure 1 above as a timeline, included Green Papers (Education and Culture Committee reports ECCR), preparatory curriculum documents (MOS 2002), White Papers (Government’s proposals GP), Acts, and National Core Curricula for ECEC and two-year pre-primary trials. Genealogical reading of Finnish ECEC evaluation policy discourse waves The methodological standpoint of this research is inspired by Foucauldian genealogy, also known as the history of the present. Genealogical research takes as its research object 6A. SIIPPAINEN AND H. PITKÄNEN an issue, idea, or practice that we currently consider normal and self-evident and, therefore, unquestioned and natural. The genealogy unravels and problematizes this selfevidence by studying the descent and socio-historical constitution of these ideas and practices by focusing on their emergence, mobilization, transformation, and disappearance (Anderson, 2015; Christensen, 2016; Foucault, 1977; Tamboukou, 1999). This means that genealogy notices the historicity of our current notions and captures the current self-evidence as contingent and sociohistorically constructed events of history rather than natural elements of our social and political world. Genealogy often operates in three analytical dimensions: knowledge, power, and subject (e.g. Heikkinen et al., 1999; Mahon 1992). In the dimension of knowledge, our focus is on socio-historically changing discursive practices. We refer to Foucault’s, (2013/ 1969 notion of discursive practices as socio-historically constituted practices of discourse and knowledge, which organize and shape the thinking and conduct of people and society (also Bacchi and Bonham, 2014). Therefore, ideas, concepts, and practices focused on analysis are not considered separate from each other but rather related and part of some wider system of reasoning and practicing in the social and political world (Foucault, 2013/1969/1969). In other words, each analyzed discursive practice has its own specific but coherent system of reasoning, conceptualizing, and organizing education and its governance and related practices. Inspired by Evert Vedung’s (2010) metaphor of evaluation waves, describing the historically changing idea and roles of evaluation in society from the 1960s onward, we illustrate the analyzed discursive practices as socio-historically changing evaluation waves. During the research period, new waves (discursive practices) emerged and developed, whereas others diminished their role in the studied ECEC policy discourse. Although Vedung’s own approach was not genealogical, the idea of the wave is illustrative of how changing discursive practices transform through time. As a new wave emerges, it brings new water from the sea, containing new ideas, concepts, and practices, but it is mixed with the water that has landed earlier. The water also includes undercurrents that flow and penetrate the waves. Thus, in the swirls of 1973… 2002… 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 National Core Curriculum for Early Childhood Education (2003) National Core Curriculum for Early Childhood Education (2018) National Core Curriculum for Two-Year Preprimary Education Trial (2021) National Core Curriculum for PrePrimary Education (2014) Act 580/2015 National Core Curriculum for Early Childhood Education (2016) GP341/2014; ECCR29/2014 Act 36/1973 GP40/2018; ECCR5/2018; Act 540/2018 GP149/2020; ECCR11/2020; Act 1046/2020 Green Paper on ECEC (MOS 2002) Figure 1. Research material. JOURNAL OF EDUCATION POLICY 7 two ideas in the Finnish ECEC policy discourse: one that emphasizes the evaluation as a tool for indicating the effectiveness of the policy trial, and the other that highlights the role of ECEC in developing children’s self-assessment skills. As the call for evidence on ECEC through evaluation is found at the core of the wave, we call it an evidence wave. In the trial, justified by the policy aim of making ‘education more equitable by encouraging more children to participate in pre-primary education as part of ECEC’ (MOE 2023), approximately 15,000 five-year-olds were obliged by law (Act 1046/2020) to participate in two-year pre-primary education instead of one-year education. Thus, the trial can be interpreted as a policy response to a debate and related policy concern about the low enrollment of children in ECEC in Finland in comparison with other Nordic or OECD countries (OECD, 2018; 2019a; 2020), which in turn translated into a concern about educational equality. The trial was also aimed at developing the quality and effectiveness of pre-primary education from other angles. For example, the policy interest is directed toward the continuity and transitions between ECEC, pre-primary education, and initial teaching; choices guardians make regarding ECEC and childcare services; and the impact of two-year pre-primary education on children’s learning and social skills and on the building of healthy self-esteem (GP149/2020; ECCR11/2020). As the pre-primary education reform was introduced as a trial, it was accompanied by a related experimental setting aimed at demonstrating its impact and effectiveness. Whereas earlier Finnish discourse had been highly suspicious toward measuring individual children’s skills and learning in ECEC (GP341/2014; ECCR29/2014), now, under the guise of trial and its policy intention of increasing educational equality, the measurement of developmental and learning conditions, social skills, and self-esteem of individual children’s reached the ECEC legislation without dispute (Act 1046/2020; also ECCR11/ 2020; GP149/2020). Nevertheless, some contradictions seem to remain in ECEC policy discourse. Namely, continuing the rationality manifested in the earlier ECEC policy discourse, the curriculum set for the trial (FNAE, 2021, 38) continued to outline that ‘the curriculum objectives are set for education, not for the learning of individual children.’ Following this reasoning, the evaluation was directed toward the educational environment and pedagogy rather than the results of the children’s learning (FNAE, 2021). Contrary to this, the trial legislation inserted the idea of measuring children in the mood of enabling scientific examination and demonstrating the effectiveness of the trial: The body conducting the follow-up and evaluation of the trial can commission necessary evaluations for children in the target group to examine the realization of the purpose of the trial, to monitor the development of the child’s developmental and learning conditions, social skills, and the child’s healthy self-esteem. (Act 1046/2020) Thus, the child, positioned as a participating learner by the pedagogization wave, is transformed toward an assessed and examined child along the evidence wave. The mixing of ‘water’ that landed earlier, constitutes a significant change in the history of ECEC policy discourse, manifesting a tendency toward the schoolification of assessment and evaluation in ECEC. This is also supported by the introduction of the related practice of children’s self-evaluation in the trial curriculum: Pre-primary school education develops the prerequisites for self-assessment of children. Children are encouraged to describe what they like in pre-primary school, where they feel they have succeeded and what they would like to learn in the future. [–] During the learning 14 A. SIIPPAINEN AND H. PITKÄNEN path of children, the gradually evolving self-assessment skills are part of the learning skills. (FNAE, 2021, p. 39) Therefore, in the evidence wave, an ECEC-aged child with certain skills and learning is not only constituted as an assessed object but also positioned as a self-evaluative subject. This transformation is following developments in the field of comprehensive education, where, in line with the constructive and self-regulated learning theories, and the swirl the of life-long learning, the pupil self-evaluation has found its way into the core of pupil assessment policy discourse and practice since the 1990s (Act, 628/1998; §22; FNAE, 1994; Pitkänen, 2022a), also in pre-primary education since 2014 (FNAE, 2014). Now, this practice of child self-evaluation and its related position for selfevaluative pupil subjects also enters ECEC policy discourse, as self-evaluation skills are considered an elementary part of the learning skills practiced in two-year preprimary education. Although the third wave raises the child as an evaluated object justified by the trials’ aims, and also as a self-evaluative subject, the discourse remains almost totally silent on evaluating the impacts of trial on the child. This is only briefly addressed in the Education and Culture Committee’s Green Paper in response to the government’s White Paper, as stated: The child impact assessment must, using a variety of methods, examine the opinions of all children involved in the experiment and take them into account in decision-making both during and after the experiment. Enabling the participation of children is a key part of ensuring the realization of the rights of the child and the best interests of the child. (ECCER11/2020) However, this claim to the child impact assessment on trial is ignored in the final legislation (Act 1046/2020). This is noteworthy, as the policy discourse emphasizes that children must learn self-assessment skills, but the state does not have to demonstrate child impact assessment when it comes to the trial. Therefore, under the evidence wave, unlike Vedung’s notion of it, not only is the importance of demonstrating effectiveness emphasized, but the wave also manifests the idea of self-evaluative children responsible for their own learning and future. Marks on the shoreline? Concluding remarks This article has been inspired by scientific curiosity about the entities and issues in the history of Finnish ECEC policy discourse that have contributed to the increased importance of data and evaluation in the Finnish ECEC field, traditionally emphasizing child-centered ECEC pedagogy and play over children’s learning outcomes (Karila, 2012). In the genealogical reading of the research material, using a set of ECEC curricula and policy documents as data, we identified three socio-historically changing discursive practices – evaluation waves, following the metaphor by Evert Vedung (2010) – that have been contributing to the formation and rise of the present conception and related practices of evaluation in the Finnish early childhood education policy discourse. We called these evaluation waves partnership, pedagogization, and evidence waves. Our analyses show that these waves have been JOURNAL OF EDUCATION POLICY 15 formatted at the intersection of national and global policy flows, swirls, and undercurrents. To summarize the findings, we next reflect each of these waves through the genealogical axes of knowledge, power, and subject, as encapsulated in the following figure (Figure 2). The first evaluation wave, the partnership wave, entered at the turn of the 21st century, mobilizing the idea of quality evaluation in the studied Finnish ECEC policy discourse and related practice. The rise of the wave was supported by the global swirl of managerial rationality and practices landing vastly the Finnish public sector, including ECEC, along with the introduction of New Public Management-oriented reforms in the mid-1990s (e.g. Bardy, Salmi and Heino, 2002; Kauko et al., 2018; Outinen and Lindqvist, 1999). The wave was also shaped by the traditional Finnish and Nordic social-democratic undercurrent emphasizing egalitarian values such as social equality and collective shared responsibility for the wellbeing of all citizens (e.g. Karila, 2012). Thus, it was at the intersection of these flows – the social democratic undercurrent and global managerialist swirl – under which the first wave emerged and started to shape. Along the partnership wave, ECEC became reasoned as a daycare service that should respond to the needs and quality expectations of families, constituting the core rationality of the wave. Mixing the traditional social democratic and emerging managerial ideas and reasoning, the families’ involvement, collaboration, and educational partnerships between parents and daycare personnel were highlighted. Parents were then positioned as educational partners in the double sense: as subjects educationally collaborating with Waves & Genealogical axes WAVE1: Partnership WAVE3: Evidence Knowledge/ ECEC as daycare service ECEC as a chain in the lifelong learning Power/ techniques Involving parents in tool in professional development and quality management tool to develop pedagogy; efficiency—assessment of children’s skills; Developing children’s selfSubject/ Nursed child; partners; learner; Informed parents; experts child 2010s 2000s2020sFigure 2. Evaluation waves and genealogical axes. 16 A. SIIPPAINEN AND H. PITKÄNEN the personnel, the child being their shared interest and object of care, but also as subjects of being customers of ECEC services whose needs the services should respond to. Along the wave, the techniques and practices of quality evaluation, including customer surveys, quality criteria, and the practice of continuous self-evaluation, documentation, and improvement of activities by ECEC professionals and daycare centers, were introduced. Moreover, by inserting these techniques and related reasoning, the idea of self-governing ECEC centers was consolidated and the self-evaluative and self-governing ECEC professional subjectivity mobilized. In this way, the governing of ECEC was transformed from traditional bureaucratic regulation and rule toward governing at a distance increasingly relying on the self-governance of the governed (Pitkänen, 2023) – the idea of governing still prevailing. During the second wave, the pedagogization wave, which landed in the 2010s, the role and extent of evaluation increased and conquered new arenas. As part of the major reforms in ECEC, evaluation became obligatory by law and curriculum. The evaluation became directed at a more diverse range of issues – including data generated by evaluations that can be linked with datafication development – following increasing amounts of evaluation and assessment in the field of ECEC (e.g. Paananen and Grieshaber, 2022). Most significantly, during the pedagogization wave, the rationality underlying ECEC became transformed. At that point, ECEC was primarily reasoned as a chain in the process of lifelong learning of the child rather than as a daycare service offered for families. Therefore, under the pedagogization wave, the emphasis on families’ and children’s right to daycare services transformed toward highlighting children’s right to learn in ECEC but also engage and participate in matters concerning themselves. These emphases strongly reflect the idea of lifelong learning, which is widely spread in international educational policy discourses (e.g. OECD, 2019b), intersecting with the Children’s right convention. Following the changing rationality, the evaluation was primarily considered a pedagogic technique for planning and assessing pedagogical activities and the learning environments of ECEC institutions instead of monitoring customer satisfaction. Under these rationalities, new kinds of subjectivities emerged. The role of parents transformed from being educational partners to being informed guardians of the child. Instead, the child became considered a lifelong learner with a participatory role in one’s education and the evaluation of ECEC activities. The ECEC personnel, in turn, became positioned as educational experts who used evaluation and assessment as a pedagogical technique. Following this, the key role of ECEC professionals in evaluation was sedimented into the discourse. The third wave, the evidence wave, was pushed forward by the amplifying undercurrent shaped by the neoliberal mainstream that landed the education systems across the globe. Along with this neoliberalism-inspired undercurrent landing in the Finnish ECEC field too, the idea of evaluation as a practice of assessing the performance and skills of individual children was introduced. While this practice had been resisted earlier by the Finnish ECEC policy discourse, under the pre-primary education trial accompanied by the need to demonstrate the effectiveness of two-year pre-primary education, the measurement of individual children’s skills and self-esteem entered the policy discourse and legislation. These transformations in policy and practice reflect a step toward a new kind of rationality and reasoning of ECEC, under which ECEC is increasingly considered a part of the formal education system providing educational capital for society in the context of the global economy. Given this reasoning, the evidence on the efficient functioning of the education JOURNAL OF EDUCATION POLICY 17 system, early education as part of, has received increasing attention in the discourse. In the earlier literature, the trend called the schoolification of ECEC has been widely reported in neoliberal educational contexts (e.g. Bradbury, 2019a). Consequently, under the evidence wave, evaluation is no longer exclusively a pedagogical task of ECEC professionals. Rather, it is also carried out nationally, with a focus on individual children, to attain research-based evidence on the effectiveness of the ECEC policy trial in supporting educational political decision-making. While the discourse shapes the orientation toward evaluation toward an idea of evidence, the emphasis on lifelong learning raised by the second wave continues to be highlighted. Following this, the idea and practice of children’s self-evaluation emerged in the discourse. The reasoning sedimented in the Finnish basic education assessment culture and curriculum since the late 1990s (Pitkänen, 2022a) now supports the claim that ECEC should also develop children’s self-evaluation skills. This emphasis on children’s self-evaluation is a trend visible across education systems (e.g. OECD, 2019b), where self-evaluation is considered a key competence for lifelong learners with the ability to adapt to the changing requirements in the economy and society. Thereafter, in the evidence wave, under school aged children, positioned as participating lifelong learners by the pedagogization wave, are now transformed as assessed subjects whose lifelong learning process is continuously examined, while the discussion on the role of parents is deemphasized. Therefore, it seems that parents, as informed guardians raised by the pedagogization wave, have now become sedimented. In conclusion, the Finnish ECEC policy discourse and practice on evaluation and data, albeit showing resistance toward neoliberal policy trends, has been taking shape at the intersection of national and international or global policy ideas and practices throughout the research period. However, the landing of the evidence wave prompts us to consider whether the traditional social democratic undercurrent that has been filtering the global flows and pushing the biggest waves backwards to the sea is now settling down, enabling global swirls and flows to reach the shoreline. Using Peter Dahler-Larsen’s conceptualization, this might reinforce the trend of the audit society (2011), characterized by the continuous presence and trust in evaluation and data coupled with the evaluation machinery. Ultimately, we have yet to see which undercurrents will remain, which will disappear along the swirls of political discourses, and which will rise to the surface and potentially sediment on the shoreline. Research material Act (540/2018). Act on early childhood education (540/2018) Act (1046/2020). Act on two-year pre-primary education trial (1046/2020) Act (580/2015). An amendment to the Act on Day Care (580/2015) CR29/2014. Committee Report CR29/2014 CR5/2018. Committee Report CR5/2018 CR11/2020. Committee Report CR11/2020 GP341/2014. Government Proposal GP341/2014 GP40/2018. Government Proposal GP40/2018 GP149/2020. Government Proposal GP149/2020 FNAE 2018. National Core Curriculum for Early Childhood Education. Finnish National Agency for Education. 18 A. SIIPPAINEN AND H. PITKÄNEN FNAE 2021. National Core Curriculum for a Two-Year Pre-primary Education Trial. Finnish National Agency for Education. MOS 2002. Decision in Principle of the Council of State Concerning the National Policy Definition on Early Childhood Education and Care. Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. Stakes, 2005. National Core Curriculum for Early Childhood Education. Finnish National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health. Notes 1. As in Finnish, the word ‘arviointi’ refers to both evaluation and assessment, we use the definition by Gullo Dominic’s (2005), who referred to assessment as practices in which professionals collect information on children in different ways. Evaluation refers to data collected using for example informal, formal and standardized information about knowledge. 2. Currently, all children have the unconditional right to ECEC. At the age of six, children move to pre-primary school, which is compulsory, free of charge, and follows its own curriculum until at the age of seven, at which point the children start the 9-year-long comprehensive schooling. Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). Funding The work was supported by the Emil Aaltonen Foundation [200257P]; the Academy of Finland [353972]. Notes on contributors Anna Siippainen is a senior lecturer at Tampere University, Finland. Hannele Pitkänen is a postdoctoral researcher at University of Jyväskylä, Finland. ORCID Anna Siippainen http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2845-2554 Hannele Pitkänen http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0955-5216 References Act 36/1973. Act on Children’s Day Care 36/1973. Act 628/1998. Act on Basic Education 628/1998. Alila, K. 2013. Varhaiskasvatuksen laadun ohjaus ja ohjauksen laatu. Laatupuhe varhaiskasvatuksen valtionhallinnon ohjausasiakirjoissa 1972–2012 [Early Childhood Education Quality Control and Quality of Guidance. Quality Speech in State Government Guidance Documents for Early Childhood Education 1972–2012]. Tampere: Tampereen yliopisto. JOURNAL OF EDUCATION POLICY 19 Anderson, A. 2015. “The Critical Purchase of Genealogy: Critiquing Student Participation Projects.” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 36 (1): 42–52. https://doi. org/10.1080/01596306.2013.828417 . Andrade, H. L. 2019. “A Critical Review of Research on Student Self-Assessment.” Frontiers of Education 87 (4): 1–13. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2019.00087 . Andrade, H. L., and A. Valtcheva. 2009. “Promoting Learning and Achievement Through Self-Assessment.” Theory into Practice 48 (1): 12–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 00405840802577544 . Anttonen, A., and J. Sipilä. 2000. Suomalaista sosiaalipolitiikkaa [Finnish Social Policy]. Vastapaino. Bacchi, C., and J. Bonham. 2014. “Reclaiming Discursive Practices As an Analytic Focus: Political Implications.” Foucault Studies 17: 173–192. https://doi.org/10.22439/fs.v0i17.4298 . Ball, S. J. 2003. “The Teacher’s Soul and the Terrors of Performativity.” Journal of Education Policy 18 (2): 215–228. https://doi.org/10.1080/0268093022000043065 . Ball, S. J. 2016. “Neoliberal Education? Confronting the Slouching Beast.” Policy Futures in Education 14 (8): 1046–1059. https://doi.org/10.1177/1478210316664259 . Ball, S. J. 2018. Governing by Numbers. Education, Governance, and the Tyranny of Numbers. London: Routledge. Bardy, M., M. Salmi, and T. Heino. 2002. “Mikä lapsiamme uhkaa? Suuntaviivoja 2000-luvun lapsipoliittiseen keskusteluun [What Threatens Our Children? Guidelines for Child Policy Discussion in the 21st Century].” Sosiaalija terveysalan tutkimusja kehittämiskeskus. Raportteja 26. Boud, D., and R. Soler. 2016. “Sustainable Assessment Revisited.” Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 41 (3): 400–413. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2015.1018133 . Bradbury, A. 2012. “‘I Feel Absolutely Incompetent’: Professionalism, Policy, and Early Childhood Teachers.” Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood 13 (3): 175–186. https://doi.org/10.2304/ ciec.2012.13.3.175 . Bradbury, A. 2019a. “Datafied at Four: The Role of Data in the ‘Schoolification’ of Early Childhood Education in England.” Learning, Media and Technology 44 (1): 7–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 17439884.2018.1511577 . Bradbury, A. 2019b. “Making Little Neo-Liberals: The Production of Ideal Child/Learner Subjectivities in Primary School Through Choice, Self-Improvement and ‘Growth Mindsets’.” Power & Education 11 (3): 309–326. https://doi.org/10.1177/1757743818816336 . Bradbury, A., and G. Roberts-Holmes. 2017. The Datafication of Primary and Early Years Education: Playing with Numbers. London: Routledge. Camphuijsen, M. K., J. Møller, and G. Skedsmo. 2021. “Test-Based Accountability in the Norwegian Context: Exploring Drivers, Expectations and Strategies.” Journal of Education Policy 36 (5): 624–642. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2020.1739337 . Christensen, G. 2016. “Genealogy and Educational Research.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 29 (6): 763–776. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2016.1162871 . Dahler-Larsen, P. 2011. The Evaluation Society. Standford, California: Stanford University Press. European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice 2015. Assuring Quality in Education. Policies and Approaches to School Evaluation in Europe. Eurydice Report. Luxembourg: Publications office of the European Union. FINEEC (Finnish Education Evaluation Centre). 2022. Accessed December 14, 2022. https://karvi. fi/en . Finnish Government. 2021. Education Policy Report of the Finnish Government 2021. Publications of the Finnish Government 2021:24. FNAE (Finnish National Agency for Education). 1994. National Core Curriculum for Basic Education. (2004). FNAE (Finnish National Agency for Education). 2016. National Core Curriculum for Early Childhood Education. FNAE (Finnish National Agency of Education). 2021. “Oppilaan oppimisen ja osaamisen arviointi perusopetuksessa. Perusopetuksen opetussuunnitelman perusteiden 2014 muutokset. 20 A. SIIPPAINEN AND H. PITKÄNEN 10.2.2020.” [Assessment of Pupils Learning and Skills in Basic Education Adjustments to the National Core Curriculum 2014 in 10 2 2020] Finnish National Agency of Education. Foucault, M. 1977. “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History.” In Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews, edited by D. F. Bouchard, 139–164, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Foucault, M. 1997. “The Ethics of the Concern for Self As a Practice of Freedom.” In Michel Foucault: Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth: The Essential Works of Michel Foucault 1954–1984, edited by P. Rabinow, 281–301. Vol. 1. London: Penguin Press. Foucault, M. 2002/1982. “The Subject and Power.” In Power: Essential Works of Foucault 1954– 1984, edited by J. D. Faubion, 326–348. Vol. 3. London: Penguin. Foucault, M. 2007. Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the College de France, 1977–78. edited by A. I. Davidson and G. Burchell. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Foucault, M. 2013/1969. Archaeology of Knowledge. Taylor and Francis. Web. https://doi.org/10. 4324/9780203604168 . Furubo, J.-E., and N. Stame, eds. 2019. The Evaluation Enterprise: A Critical View. Milton: Routledge. Garver, R. 2020. “Evaluative Relationships: Teacher Accountability and Professional Culture.” Journal of Education Policy 35 (5): 623–647. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2019.1566972 . Gitz-Johansen, T., 2011. “Lapsen arviointi. Hyväksyttävän subjektiviteetin rajat ja saksalaisen kriittisen teorian kokeilu. [Evaluation of a child. Limits of acceptable subjectivity and testing of German critical theory]. In Suojeltu lapsuus? Raportti Lapsuudentutkimuksen päiviltä 2011.” In [Protected Childhood? Report from the Childhood Conference 2011], edited by E. Aalto, M. Alasuutari, and T. Heino, 51/ 17–21. Helsinki, Finland: Finnish institute of health and welfare. Gore, J., B. Rickards, and L. Fray. 2023. “From Performative to Professional Accountability: ReImagining ‘The Field of Judgment’ Through Teacher Professional Development.” Journal of Education Policy 38 (3): 452–473. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2022.2080274 . Grimaldi, E. 2019. An Archaeology of Educational Evaluation: Epistemological Spaces and Political Paradoxes. London & New York: Routledge. Gullo Dominic, F. 2005. Understanding Assessment and Evaluation in Early Childhood Education. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Hardy, I. 2019. “The Quandary of Quantification: Data, Numbers and Teachers Learning.” Journal of Education Policy 36 (1): 44–63. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2019.1672211 . Hardy, I. 2022. “Affective Learning for Effective Learning? Data, Numbers and Teachers’ Learning.” Teaching and Teacher Education 116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2022.103754 . Heikkinen, S., H. Silvonen, and H. Simola. 1999. “Technologies of Truth. Peeling Foucault’s Triangular Onion.” Discourse 20 (1): 141–157. https://doi.org/10.1080/0159630990200109 . Holloway, J. 2019. “Risky Teachers: Mitigating Risk Through High-Stakes Teacher Evaluation in the USA.” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 40 (3): 399–411. https://doi. org/10.1080/01596306.2017.1322938 . Holloway, J., and J. Brass. 2018. “Making Accountable Teachers: The Terrors and Pleasures of Performativity.” Journal of Education Policy 33 (3): 361–382. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939. 2017.1372636 . Hujala-Huttunen, E. 1995. “Varhaiskasvatuksen Laadun Arviointi. [Evaluation of the Quality of Early Childhood Education.” In Näkökulmia varhaiskasvatukseen. [Perspectives on Early Childhood Education], edited by E. Hujala-Huttunen and E. Estola, Oulun lastentarhanopettajaopisto. Oulun yliopisto 69–82. Oulu: Monistusja Kuvakeskus. Hujala-Huttunen, E., and L. Tauriainen. 1995. Laadunarviointi varhaiskasvatuksessa. [Quality Assessment in Early Childhood Education]. Oulu: University of Oulu: varhaiskasvatuskeskus. Hujala, E., and V. Nivala. 2022. “Poimintoja varhaiskasvatuksen laatupolulta. [Picks from the Quality Path for Early Childhood Education]. In Tutkimuksesta ja kokemuksesta vahvuutta varhaiskasvatukseen. [Strength from Research and Experience for Early Childhood Education]” edited by. S. Havu-Nuutinen, R. Korhonen, and R. Rouvinen, 89–105. Reports and Studies in Education, Humanities, and Theology. Joensuu & Kuopio: University of Eastern Finland. JOURNAL OF EDUCATION POLICY 21 Jarke, J., and A. Breiter. 2019. “Editorial: The Datafication of Education.” Learning, Media and Technology 44 (1): 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2019.1573833 . Karila, K. 2012. “A Nordic Perspective on Early Childhood Education and Care Policy.” European Journal of Education 47 (4): 584–595. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejed.12007 . Kauko, J., and M. Salokangas. 2015. “The Evaluation and Steering of English Academy Schools Through Inspection and Examinations: National Visions and Local Practices.” British Educational Research Journal 41 (6): 1108–1124. https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.3184 . Kauko, J., T. Takala, and R. Rinne. 2018. “Comparing Politics of Quality in Education.” In Politics of Quality in Education. A Comparative Study of Brazil, China, and Russia, edited by J. Kauko, R. Rinne, and T. Takala, 1–17. London: Routledge. Kauko, J., J. Varjo, and H. Pitkänen. 2020. “Quality and Evaluation in Finnish Schools.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/ 9780190264093.013.1451 . Lingard, B., and S. Sellar. 2013. “‘Catalyst Data’: Perverse Systemic Effects of Audit and Accountability in Australian Schooling.” Journal of Education Policy 28 (5): 634–656. https:// doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2012.758815 . Mahon, M. 1992. Foucault’s Nietzschean Genealogy: Truth, Power, and the Subject. Albany: State University of New York Press. Meretniemi, M. 2015. “Hyvä koti ja henkinen äitiys lastentarhatyön esikuvina. Aateja käsitehistoriallinen tutkielma Suomen varhaiskasvatuksen taustasta. [A good home and spiritual motherhood as kindergarten ideals.” The intellectual and conceptual history of early childhood education in Finland] Helsingin yliopiston Käyttäytymistieteellisen tiedekunnan opettajankoulutuslaitoksen tutkimuksia 369. OECD. 2013. Synergies of Better Learning. An International Perspective on Evaluation and Assessment. OECD. https://doi.org/10.1787/22230955 . OECD. 2018. Education at a Glance 2018: OECD Indicators. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi. org/10.1787/19991487 . OECD. 2019a. Education at a Glance 2019: OECD Indicators. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi. org/10.1787/19991487 . OECD. 2019b. “OECD Future of Education and Skills 2030. OECD Learning Compass 2030.” OECD. https://www.oecd.org/education/2030-project/contact/ OECD_Learning_Compass_ 2030_Concept_Note_Series.pdf . OECD. 2020. Education at a Glance 2020: OECD Indicators. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi. org/10.1787/19991487 . O’Neill, A.-M. 2015. “The New Zealand Experiment: Assessment-Driven Curriculum – Managing Standards, Competition, and Performance to Strengthen Governmentality.” Journal of Education Policy 30 (6): 831–854. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2015.1033766 . Onnismaa, E.-L., and M. Paananen. 2019. “Varhaiskasvatuksen opetussuunnitelmatradition muotoutuminen Suomessa 1970-luvulta 2010-luvulle.” [The Formation of the Early Childhood Education Curriculum Tradition in Finland from the 1970s to the 2010s.” In Siirtymiä Ja Ajan merkkejä Koulutuksessa: Opetussuunnitelmatutkimuksen Näkökulmia. [Transitions and Time Signs in Education: Perspectives on Curriculum Research], edited by T. Autio, L. Hakala, and T. Kujala, 189–220. Tampere: Tampere University Press. Oosterhoff, A., T. L. Thompson, I. Oenema-Mostert, and A. Minnaert. 2023. “En/Countering the Doings of Standards in Early Childhood Education: Drawing on Actor-Network Theory to Trace Enactments of and Resistances to Emerging Sociomaterial Policy Assemblages.” Journal of Education Policy 38 (6): 963–984. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2022.2161639 . Outinen, M., and T. Lindqvist, eds. 1999. Sosiaalija terveydenhuollon laadunhallinta 2000 – luvulle: Valtakunnallinen suositus [Social and Health Care Quality Management for the 21st Century: National Recommendation]. Helsinki: Stakes. Ozga, J., P. Dahler-Larsen, C. Segerholm, and H. Simola, eds. 2011. Fabricating Quality in Education. Data and Governance in Europe. London: Routledge. Paananen, M. 2017. “Imaginaries of Early Childhood Education: Societal Roles of Early Childhood Education in an Era of Accountability.” PhD diss. University of Helsinki. 22 A. SIIPPAINEN AND H. PITKÄNEN Paananen, M., and S. Grieshaber. 2022. “Policies of Interlude and Interruption: Stories of Governance As an Assemblage.” Journal of Education Policy 38 (3): 367–385. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/02680939.2021.2021296 . Piattoeva, N. 2015. “Elastic Numbers: National Examinations Data as a Technology of Government.” Journal of Education Policy 30 (3): 316–334. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939. 2014.937830 . Pierlejewski, M. 2020. “The Data-Doppelganger and the Cyborg-Self: Theorising the Datafication of Education.” Pedagogy Culture & Society 28 (3): 463–475. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366. 2019.1653357 . Pitkänen, H. 2022a. “The Politics of Pupil Self-Evaluation: A Case of Finnish Assessment Policy Discourse.” Journal of Curriculum Studies 54 (5): 712–732. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272. 2022.2040596 . Pitkänen, H. 2022b. “Genealogy of the Ethics of Teacher Self-Evaluation. From Adherence to Norms to Self-Discipline Through Self-Evaluation.” In Quality in Teaching and Teacher Education. International Perspectives from a Changing World. Tepe Series. Key Issues in Teacher Education: Policy, Research and Practice, edited by J. Madalinska-Michalak, 72–97. Leiden: Brill. Pitkänen, H. 2023. “Finnish Quality Evaluation Discourse: Swimming Against the Global Tide?” In Finland’s Famous Education System – Unvarnished Insights into Finnish Schooling, edited by M. Thrupp, P. Seppänen, J. Kauko, and S. Kosunen, 71–86, Springer Nature. Roberts-Holmes, G. 2015. “The ‘Datafication’ of Early Years Pedagogy: ‘If the Teaching Is Good, the Data Should Be Good and if There’s Bad Teaching, There Is Bad Data’.” Journal of Education Policy 30 (3): 302–315. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2014.924561 . Roberts-Holmes, G., and A. Bradbury. 2016. “Governance, Accountability and the Datafication of Early Years Education in England.” British Educational Research Journal 42 (4): 600–613. https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.3221 . Rose, N. 1999. Governing the Soul. The Shaping of the Private Self. London: Free Association Books. Sahlberg, P. 2011. “The Fourth Way of Finland.” Journal of Educational Change 12: 173–185. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-011-9157-y . Sahlberg, P. 2016. “The Global Educational Reform Movement and Its Impact on Schooling.” In The Handbook of Global Education Policy, edited by K. Mundy, A. Green, B. Lingard, and A. Verger, 128–144. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. Schmidt, L. S. K., and M. Alasuutari. 2023. “The Changing Policy Ideals for Parental Cooperation in Early Childhood Education and Care.” Global Studies of Childhood 13 (3): 232–244. https:// doi.org/10.1177/20436106231175028 . Sellar, S. 2015. “A Feel for Numbers: Affect, Data and Education Policy.” Critical Studies in Education 56 (1): 131–146. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2015.981198 . Selwyn, N. 2015. “Data Entry: Towards the Critical Study of Digital Data and Education.” Learning, Media and Technology 40 (1): 64–82. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2014.921628 . Selwyn, N., and D. Gašević. 2020. “The Datafication of Higher Education: Discussing the Promises and Problems.” Teaching in Higher Education 25 (4): 527–540. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 13562517.2019.1689388 . Siippainen, A., K. Repo, and R. Enroos. 2022. Government, Policy and the Role of the State. Finland. Bloomsbury Education and Childhood Studies. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350934399.030 . Siippainen, A., H. Toivonen, and A. Paakkari. 2023. “Towards a Democracy of Translations? Local Evaluation Actor Networks in Finnish Early Childhood Education.” Global Studies of Childhood 13 (3): 217–231. https://doi.org/10.1177/20436106231175026 . Simola, H., R. Rinne, J. Varjo, H. Pitkänen, and J. Kauko. 2011. “Quality Assurance and Evaluation (QAE) in Finnish Compulsory Schooling: A National Model or Just Unintended Effects of Radical Decentralisation?.” Journal of Education Policy 24 (2): 163–178. Smith, W. C., ed. 2016. The Global Testing Culture Shaping Education Policy, Perceptions, and Practices. Oxford: Symposium Books Ltd. Stakes. 2003. National Core Curriculum for Early Childhood Education. Finnish National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health. JOURNAL OF EDUCATION POLICY 23