Uuskonservatismin ja -liberalismin risteyksessä. Hallinnan rationaliteetit varhaiskasvatuksen tasa-arvosuunnitteluvelvoitetta vastustavissa esityksissä

Abstract

Gender equality in Finland has a strong and multi-layered legal foundation. The Finnish education system has aimed to promote equality and gender equality, but methods have varied over time and across different levels of the education system. Policies aimed at promoting equality have been contentious in the field of education, and the concept of equality has meant different things at different times. This study examines the types of problem representations that challenged, resisted, or questioned the obligation to draft gender equality plans in early childhood education, as constructed in the context of the reform of the Equality Act. It also explores the rationalities of governance that these representations reflect. The data consist of stakeholder and expert statements submitted in response to the government proposal to amend the Equality Act. Carol Bacchi's (2009) WPR approach was applied in the analysis. It is suitable for the study of policies and is based on the premise that policy addresses discursively constructed problems, i.e., problem representations. Four problem representations were identified in the data: the planning obligation is an ineffective means of promoting gender equality, the implementation of the planning obligation is contingent on available resources, the primary barrier to promoting equality is a lack of staff competence, not a lack of planning obligation, and promoting the planning obligation destabilizes the binary gender order. These problem representations reflect neoliberal rationalities that emphasize managerialism and individual responsibility, as well as a neoconservative gender order. Considering this study, the discourse of equality is so strong that actual measures to promote equality are seen as secondary to other objectives or are opposed as unnecessary. However, equality is not an achieved and stable state, but a phenomenon open to challenge and changing over time, which must be continuously defended.