Introduction: Path-dependencies and Change in Child-care and Preschool Institutions in Europe — Historical and Institutional Perspectives

Abstract

Public child care and collective forms of education in early childhood have already been well researched, not only from a national but also from a comparative perspective.1 It might not be very productive to add to this literature, were it not that the available research is strongly dominated by a relatively short-range social policy perspective. Where comparison is practised, it focuses on developments of the last decades, which are virtually all connected with the rise in mothers’ labour market participation and the ensuing increase in the need for public child-care arrangements.2 Broadening the temporal horizon of our view to include long-range developments since the nineteenth century allows us to see questions bound to be rendered invisible by the shorter-range perspective.KeywordsChild CareEarly Childhood EducationFamily PolicyEducational ModelPolicy MotiveThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.