Pondering Policy and Parental Perspectives: How Parents View their Role in Shaping Early Childhood Public Policy

Irvine S¹*

1. Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

The focus of this paper is the role of Australian parents in early childhood education and care (ECEC), in particular, their role in shaping ECEC public policy. The paper reports the findings of a study investigating the different ways in which a group of parents viewed and experienced this role. Set against a policy backdrop where parents are positioned as consumers and participants in ECEC, the study employed a phenomenographic research approach to describe this role as viewed and experienced by parents. The study identified four distinctly different ways of constituting this role. The role of parents in shaping public policy was seen as: (1) no role in shaping public policy (the no role conception); (2), being informed about policy that affects their child and family, raising any concerns and/or seeking a change to current or proposed policy (the raising concerns conception); (3) having some say in policy matters that directly affect your child and family (the having some say conception); and (4) participating in policy decision making, particularly where this is likely to affect your child and family (the participating in policy conception). The study provides an insider-perspective on the role of parents in shaping policy and highlights variation in how this role is constituted by parents, incorporating but extending beyond the idea of consumer and/or participant. The study also identifies factors perceived by parents as influencing their participation and discusses their implications for both policy and practice.

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