- Title
- Biopower and the "civilisation" of children's bodies in a preschool bathroom: an Australian case study
- Creator
- Cliff, Ken; Millei, Zsuzsa
- Relation
- International Social Science Journal Vol. 62, Issue 205-206, p. 351-362
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/issj.12005
- Publisher
- Wiley-Blackwell Publishing
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2013
- Description
- In this article we explore a vital, if rarely focused upon, space in early childhood settings (0–5 years):1 the bathroom. In bathrooms, more or less fundamental biological, self-care, and “civilising” (Elias 1978) processes are performed by children, such as those related to personal hygiene, the management of bodily discharges, the maintenance of the body and improvement of its appearance, and learning about appropriate social and private conduct of oneself in relation to these. In the Australian context, where the research reported in this article was conducted, institutions catering for young children are historically recognised as bearing a significant responsibility for children's health and hygiene (Brennan 1994). The National Childcare Accreditation Council's Quality improvement and accreditation system: quality practices guide (National Childcare Accreditation Council 2005) or the recent release of the Education and Care Services National Regulation2 (Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs 2011) outline detailed expectations in regard to hygienic bathrooms, expectations about learning the appropriate use of the bathroom, acquiring a particular body of knowledge about hygiene, the supervision of children's bathrooms with particular attention to child protection and safety, and most recently with an added criterion of children's privacy. And yet, despite these regulatory and pedagogical aspects, the bathroom has for the most part remained generally un-analysed as a space for understanding the workings of power within early childhood settings.
- Subject
- personal hygiene; preschool children; bathroom habits; spatial analysis
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1295086
- Identifier
- uon:18933
- Identifier
- ISSN:0020-8701
- Language
- eng
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