Neoliberalism and early childhood education in China

Wang, Shuling, Zhang, Yiyang and Ding, Xiangying (2025) Neoliberalism and early childhood education in China. Children and Youth Services Review, 179, [108624]. (doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2025.108624).

Abstract

Building upon previous critical education policy studies, this study is a policy review that draws on a qualitative analysis of Chinese Early Childhood Education (ECE) policies enacted before and after 2010. It explores the impacts of neoliberalism on ECE and further elaborates the initiatives taken by Chinese government in combating neoliberalism. The study finds that ECE in China before 2010 was eroded by the emergence of neoliberalism due to a series of education policies issued to discharge state services to privatization which resulted in incisive educational inequality and inequity. Consequently, it triggered an ECE policy reform after 2010 with the aim of taking back state central control over educational services. The shift in policy reforms not only indicates the achievement in combating exogenous privatization, but also cautions about the neoliberal ideologies in the management of ECE institutions in terms of endogenous privatization. Although this research demonstrates how strong government interventions can mitigate market impacts on ECE inequality in China, this lens is relevant across transnational contexts influenced neoliberalism, and it calls for collective potential involving critical educators, families, and communities to construct a more democratic ECE system to guarantee both accessibility and quality of ECE.

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Contributors

Author: Shuling Wang

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