Discipline Through Timetables: Biopolitics in Preschools
摘要
This chapter explores institutional temporal regulation in Danish preschools through an analysis based on Foucault’s concepts of discipline and biopolitics. It combines comprehensive data from observations with document analysis of policies such as the Act on Day Care and the Ghetto Law package. The chapter begins with an analysis of a constructed timetable, using this as a starting point to demonstrate how clock-time governance primarily directs daily routines. It illustrates how this governance shapes an awareness of punctuality and discipline in both children and educators—qualities central to a capitalist framework of citizenship. Additionally, the chapter examines how pedagogical practices are shaped by institutional temporal regulation, embedding biopolitical aims such as punctuality, children’s readiness for elementary school, and addressing social inequality within preschool practices. In this way, the chapter offers a critical perspective on the everyday normalization of temporal practices in preschools.