Discourses of Children's Citizenship in Chinese Kindergartens: A Post‐Structural Perspective

ABSTRACT

Currently, children's citizenship in early childhood care and education (ECCE) is receiving increasing international attention, yet research in the Chinese context remains limited. Employing a post‐structural perspective and theoretical devices drawn from the work of Michel Foucault, this article examines how children's citizenship is understood and enacted in contemporary Chinese kindergartens. Based on three rounds of video‐cued interviews with 11 kindergarten teachers in China, the analysis identifies three interrelated constructions of children's citizenship: national membership, creative thinking and acting and rules and responsibilities. These constructions reflect the interplay of multiple discourses in China's ECCE, which together shape differentiated subject positions for child citizens. In everyday kindergarten practice, children's citizenship is enacted in the dynamic space between creative agency and structured routines. This tension reveals how children's citizenship participation is simultaneously enabled and regulated in selected Chinese kindergartens.