Right-ism and Neoliberalism: ECE at War

Abstract

Early childhood education (ECE) is often portrayed as a neutral service sector, yet it
functions as a social infrastructure through which political ideologies are normalized,
contested, and institutionalized. This article argues that right-wing politics and
neoliberalism operate in mutually reinforcing ways within ECE, producing conditions of
surveillance, exclusion, precarity, and curricular narrowing. Neoliberalism restructures
ECE through marketisation, audit cultures, and the erosion of public responsibility, while
right-wing politics mobilize moral panic, nativism, and cultural protectionism to regulate
what educators may teach and what identities are constructed. These forces reposition
educators as compliance workers rather than relational professionals, intensifying
pressure on already structurally marginalized families and communities. The article
examines how these interlocking logics shape policy, pedagogy, workforce conditions,
and inclusion across multiple contexts, concluding that advocating for ECE requires
more than isolated resistance to censorship or austerity but a combined struggle for
economic justice, professional autonomy, and cultural pluralism