New Zealand free kindergartens: free or freely forgotten?

Since the 1980s in New Zealand, the kindergarten service, once called the ‘flagship’ within early childhood education, has changed in reaction to the need for ‘diversity’ and ‘responsiveness’ to its communities and restructured government requirements. This paper draws on life‐history interviews with a small group of New Zealand kindergarten teachers. The teachers’ stories demonstrate the tensions between teaching within a neoliberal context, while traditional values and philosophies of the kindergarten service remain the preferred discursive practices of the teachers.