Abstract
There is strong evidence that high quality early childhood programs targeting disadvantaged groups can have lasting benefits and high returns on investment. The evidence for universal programs, however, is less conclusive. The present paper examines the claims of universal and targeted approaches to preventing early education gaps. First, recent findings on the universal unitary early education and care systems in Denmark and Norway are reviewed regarding the educational quality and compensating effects on disadvantaged children. Second, the advantages and disadvantages of targeted approaches are discussed, focusing in particular on the trade-off between cost-effectiveness and aggregated impact on society. Third, the Dutch educational equity policy will be analyzed as a case in point to illustrate the dilemmas, contradictions and paradoxes of equity policy pertaining to targeted and universal approaches. Finally, as a synthesis of the findings, two complementary approaches are outlined: a universal within targeted and a targeted within universal approach.
Highlights
There is strong evidence that high quality early childhood programs targeting disadvantaged groups can have lasting benefits and a high economic return on investment for society (Heckman et al 2010; Reynolds et al 2011), but the lion share of this evidence comes from a few well-designed and well-implemented model programs in the USA which involved specific groups in extremely disadvantaged circumstances
Targeted measures should be based on a broad instead of narrow definition of who is in the target group so that even when implementing purely targeted programs the overall impact on society can be substantial because pertaining to larger numbers of children. This may suggest that an approach that focuses on demographic areas with a moderate to high representation of target children, based on a broad definition of who is at risk, and that includes all children in these areas in a program of high quality is promising
Universal early childhood education and care (ECEC) systems, with a unitary structure, early entitlement and generous public spending are thought to be superior in enrolling children from disadvantaged backgrounds from an early age and providing these children with high quality environments for learning and development to compensate for socioeconomic and cultural disadvantages, but the evidence is not conclusive
Summary
There is strong evidence that high quality early childhood programs targeting disadvantaged groups can have lasting benefits and a high economic return on investment for society (Heckman et al 2010; Reynolds et al 2011), but the lion share of this evidence comes from a few well-designed and well-implemented model programs in the USA which involved specific groups in extremely disadvantaged circumstances. A second caveat is that universal unitary systems often have little flexibility, provide a ‘one-size-fits all’ program that often, not necessarily or intrinsically but as an empirical fact, is modelled after the primary school system with relatively large classrooms, directive teachers, predominant whole group activities combined with teacher-absent free play time, and opening hours that do not fit parents’ working hours (OECD 2006) Examples of this type of provision are the École Maternelle in France (universal, affordable, for children of age 2–6), the kindergarten in Flanders, Belgium (universal, free of charge, age 21⁄2–6), and the kindergarten in the Netherlands (universal, free of charge, age 4–6, part of the primary school system since 1985). Based on the findings and model simulations, Cornelissen et al (2018) propose that mere expansion of universal ECEC for 3- to 6-year-olds is not likely to substantially increase the participation of disadvantaged groups
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