Tensions between policy and practice: preschool managers' priorities for practice in areas of disadvantage in England

This thesis explores the experiences of six preschool managers based in areas of mixed socioeconomic communities in a city on the south coast of England. The research study was formed of analysis of Coalition Government policy and interviews with the preschool managers. A social constructionist approach to the research study examined the ways in which the Coalition Government, and the media, shared deficit discourses of families living in poverty and disadvantage. The use of Fairclough’s (2010) Dialectical Relational Approach to Critical Discourse Analysis presented as a social wrong the absence of a formal definition of disadvantage, and suggested that a reliance on an assumed shared understanding of disadvantage across society is impeded by the subjective nature of knowledge. The interdiscursive analysis of five policy texts, between 2010 and 2015, demonstrates a shift in the framing of disadvantage aligned to the policy intentions across the Coalition Government. In contrast, the rich descriptions of the preschool managers reinforce their experience and understanding of the structural factors of poverty that impact on children and their families. A Reflexive Thematic Analysis of the managers’ interviews led to five themes covering the constructions of disadvantage and the priorities of their preschool practice. The challenge of enacting Coalition policy that may be counter to the best interests of the preschool highlights the priorities of the preschool managers as sustainability, longevity and resilience. To conclude the study the priorities of the preschool managers were used as a framework to consider the tensions between policy and practice that arose during the two stages of interviews. The complexity and contradictions of their position as members of a marketised ECEC sector were compounded by their moral responsibility to support the families and children attending their preschool settings. The researcher’s insider role as a preschool manager contributed to understanding the gap in knowledge about the non-profit preschool sector.