Choice, marketing and subjectivities: A discursive-semiotic analysis of six Montessori websites

Abstract

In Australia, the term ‘preschool’ generally refers to settings that cater for the education of children in the year before compulsory schooling, hence making it a pivotal site for neoliberal discourses that seek to frame preschoolers as requiring ‘school readiness’. While much research has focused on the implications of neoliberal reforms in the primary through tertiary and childcare sectors, particularly the divisive social consequences of these shifts, insufficient attention has been paid to the ‘neoliberal creep’ – to co-opt Viggiano’s term – into the lives of Australian children and their parents/caregivers.1 This paper draws on a combination of discursive, affective and semiotic analysis to investigate how neoliberal discourses work through advertising regimes to influence parental choice in the current preschool market. Through the analysis of six Montessori preschool websites, the article highlights how, through the targeted manipulation of visual and linguistic elements, marketing experts create and reinforce idealised constructions of children, which in turn, contribute to the establishment of specific discursive and affective environments. This results in a sort of ‘emotional governance’ which directly influences the relationships between marketisation, discursive subjectivities, and the classed and gendered implications of parental choice in Australia.