E-portfolios and relational space in the early education environment

Abstract

This paper considers the role of eportfolios as an online tool intended to foster greater engagement between parent, teacher and child in early education settings. Drawing on New Zealand based research, I will critically examine the introduction of this technology as more than an addition into already existing ECEC services. Rather, I will highlight the generative impact it has in facilitating new kinds of relations between parents, teachers and managers, within what I term an emergent 'virtual landscape of ECEC'. Ultimately I argue that this landscape is shaped by asymmetries of power, which allow for processes of subjectification and governing in ECEC to occur in new ways.