The limits of childhood education: ¿rigidity or negotiated flexibility?

Abstract

Based on the recent debate about two models of children education (the eastern and the western approaches), raised by the publication of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, by the US citizen author Amy Chua, this article questions the binarism “rigidity” vs. “negotiated flexibility”, as a way to set up limits to children’s behavior. By questioning the naturalization of educational processes, and by discussing different interpretations of the aforementioned book, this article presents the culturally created character of educational-related matters and its connections with the so-called educational models. What is at stake in this rhetorical-discursive game about early childhood education is the production of a subject able to live in accordance with the demands of today´s neo-liberal rationality.