Abstract

This article describes and interprets the impact, particularly on women and children, of pressure by multilateral organizations on contemporary Brazilian early child care and education policies. Based on an analysis of macro data and documents, the author argues that this pressure is old, existing prior to the introduction of the concept of globalization into the vocabulary of the media and the social sciences. A first wave of pressure dates from the 1970s, during the cold war, and the second, beginning in the 1990s, resulted from the Washington Consensus. The central argument and supporting data presented in this article show that the early child care and education models put forward by multilateral organizations both perpetuate and are sustained by gender inequality and intersecting relations of class, race, and age domination.