Border Temporalities of Early Childhood: Diverse Education and Care Arrangements of Cross-Border Commuting Parents
Abstract
Based on the distinction between times in childhood and times of childhood, this paper examines the border temporalities of early childhood education and care in the cross-border Greater Region, SaarLorLux. Using a practice-analytical approach to times and borders, and on the basis of qualitative interviews, two types of time-related practices are identified that parents with daily work commutes from Germany to Luxembourg carry out to set up and maintain their children’s education and care arrangements (ECAs): rhythmizing and navigating. How borders and childhood times interweave in these activities is presented along three contrastive patterns of ECAs, which demonstrate the different ‘border experiences’ that cross-border commuting parents make during their use of public services of early education and care (ECEC) in the Greater Region. This not only makes the field of ECEC its own arena of border (dis)integration, but also points to early childhood-specific border temporalities. Building on this, the findings point to the need to expand current inequality-oriented perspectives on border regions and border mobility to include the aspect of childhood and care-related border temporalities.
Keywords: borders; time; border temporalities; childhood; early childhood education and care; childcare; cross-border mobility; borderlands.
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Copyright (c) 2024 Selina Behnke, Sabine Bollig
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