https://doi.org/10.1177/1476718X19860558 Journal of Early Childhood Research 1–15 © The Author(s) 2019 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/1476718X19860558 journals.sagepub.com/home/ecr The Early childhood care and development mission and the institutional circuit of evidence Ann Christin E Nilsen and Tale Steen-Johnsen University of Agder, Norway Abstract Early childhood care and development has increasingly become a part of the global development agenda. Fueled by a threefold rationale, rooted in development psychology, social economy, and human rights, the arguments for investing in early childhood care and development are virtually unassailable. However, this rationale is somehow at odds with insights developed within the sociology of childhood, emphasizing childhood as a social construction amendable to context and children’s own agency. Inspired by the methodological approach known as institutional ethnography, we explore how development aid workers respond to and enact the early childhood care and development mission. Building on interviews with development aid workers in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, we describe how their actions, when justified, enter into institutional circuits where the demand for evidence is striking. By exploring development aid workers’ own work knowledge, including how they strive to be compliant with the early childhood care and development rationale, yet also oppose it, our contribution points to the importance of re-negotiating evidence in order to discover the blind spots that may be concealed within what we refer to as a “justification loop.” Keywords Cambodia, development aid, early childhood care and development, evidence, institutional ethnography, justification loop Introduction Early childhood care and development (ECCD) 1 has increasingly become a part of the global development agenda. Based on an awareness of the potential loss in human productivity that is connected to early childhood deficits, and which is presumed to have negative impacts both on an individual and a societal level, the international commitment to develop and expand ECCD ser- vices both in developed and developing countries has been firmly established during the past dec- ades. The scientific rationale for investing in ECCD is rooted in developmental-psychological, social-economic, and human rights narratives (Nilsen, 2017). Together, these narratives constitute a strong argument for investing in ECCD, which appears virtually unassailable. The international Corresponding author: Ann Christin E Nilsen, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Agder, PO Box 422, 4604 Kristiansand, Norway. Email: ann.c.nilsen@uia.no 860558ECR 0 0 10.1177/1476718X19860558Journal of Early Childhood ResearchNilsen and Steen-Johnsen research-article 2019 Original Article