Early Childhood Education Policy Research Articles

Movement and Physical Activity in Early Childhood Education and Care Policies of Five Nordic Countries.

The purpose of this study was to examine the values of movement and physical activity (MoPA) using government policy documents (e.g., laws and curricula) on early childhood education and care (ECEC) from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. This descriptive, comparative study was designed based on curriculum theory and used word count and content analyses to identify similarities and differences in the occurrence of MoPA in the ECEC policies of Nordic countries. Seven terms were identified as MoPA-related in Nordic policy documents. These terms occurred in various content contexts: development, environment, expression, health and well-being, learning and play, albeit sparsely. MoPA was referred to as both a goal in and of itself and as a means of achieving other goals (e.g., learning or development in another area). Formulations specifically dedicated to MoPA as a goal were present in the Danish and Finnish curricula and, to some extent, also in the Norwegian curriculum, while the Icelandic and Swedish curricula mentioned MoPA mostly as a means. Findings indicated that MoPA, which is important for children’s development, health, and well-being, is a low-priority value, to varying degrees, in the ECEC policies enacted by Nordic countries and the guidance provided to educators and stakeholders therein is inexplicit.

To what extent does early childhood education policy in Australia recognise and propose action on the social determinants of health and health equity?

AbstractEarly childhood education (ECE) and development is internationally recognised as important to child health and wellbeing and to enabling children to become healthy productive adults. This paper analyses Australian ECE policy current in 2019. It uses the institutional framework of ideas, actors and institutions to determine the extent to which ECE policy recognises and acts on social determinants of health and health equity. We found that the policies supported integrated approaches, intersectoral collaboration and partnerships with parents and families. Evidence was important in formulating the ideas underpinning ECE policy. ECE was widely recognised as a social determinant of health, and the impacts of other social determinants of health and health equity were acknowledged. The ECE policies tended to be future-focused and not respond to social determinants that influence children and their families in the present time. The policies lacked strategies to address social determinants, or to engage with other sectors for this purpose. While some policies focused on breaking the cycle of disadvantage, they did not explore potential policy responses to pathways from intergenerational disadvantage to reduce poverty. Despite this, Australian ECE policy has achieved significant coherence, with shared understandings of the purpose and benefits of ECE.

Government commitments and teaching strategies for effective quality early childhood education in South Western Nigeria

This study assessed government commitment in fulfilling its obligations in ensuring quality early childhood education (ECE) as outlined in the National Policy on Education; examined the teaching strategies that teachers employed to ensure appropriate teaching and learning process; and assessed the challenges associated to teaching strategies used by teachers. A descriptive survey design was used. The population consisted of all ECE teachers and proprietors/proprietress. The sample comprised 150 teachers and 30 proprietors/proprietress of both public and private primary schools selected from two southwestern states of Nigeria using simple random sampling technique based on the availability of ECE class(es) in the study area. An instrument entitled “Government Commitment and Teaching Strategy for Effective Quality Early Childhood Education (GCTSQECE) was validated and used for data collection. The instrument has two sections with section A focusing on the demographic data of the participants while section B focused on governments involvement and teaching strategies employed by ECE teachers in having effective quality early childhood education. The instrument was validated using internal consistency while the Cronbach α reliability test coefficient of the GCTSQECE was 0.76. The data collected were analyzed using frequency and simple percentage. Results showed that there are not enough ECE professionals, few ECE departments in the universities, poor remuneration of teachers and that teachers employed the use of appropriate teaching strategies and improvised in most cases. It is therefore recommended that government should promote and support the training of teachers and implement ECE policy in primary schools.

Subcontracted mothering: a discourse on professionalism in childcare in South Korea

ABSTRACT The provision of childcare has been prioritized by the South Korean government as a primary means of decelerating the dropping fertility rate and boosting women’s employment by reducing the childrearing burden. Drawing on a Bakhtinian perspective, this study examined how discourses on professionalism and the professional identities of the childcare workforce are constructed in dialogic relation to the nation’s childcare policies. A total of 18 childcare practitioners and mothers participated in qualitative interviews about the professionalism of the childcare workforce. The study revealed that the participating childcare practitioners and mothers valued emotional and relational caring as a core element of childcare professionalism, while simultaneously recognizing childcare as a job stigmatized by both low qualifications and poor working conditions. We discuss how these discourses on the professionalism of the childcare workforce both stand in tension with and appropriate the early childhood education and care policies in Korea.

Standards, curriculum, and assessment in early childhood education: Examining alignment across multiple state systems

State governments are largely responsible for most early childhood education (ECE) policies (e.g., state pre-K, Child Care and Development Fund [CCDF]). However, multiple ECE funding streams and governing agencies within a state can lead to misaligned policies and incoherent systems. Thus, there exists great variability within and across states in ECE policy implementation. In our study we descriptively analyzed nationally, publicly available data to assess alignment within state policy systems on three policy levers often used in K-12 education research: state ECE standards, curricula, and assessment, the latter of which we operationalized as states’ quality rating and improvement systems. Additionally, we examined the extent to which the governance of our focal policy levers is dispersed across, or housed within, different state-level institutions or agencies (i.e., alignment via governance). Our descriptive analyses reveal little and limited alignment between a state's policy levers of standards, curriculum, and assessment, and between state preschool policies—state pre-K and CCDF—with respect to curricular guidance. We also find wide variation in the number of ECE governing agencies within a state. The findings indicate potential for confusion around policies for early learning providers and demonstrate largely misaligned or poorly specified policies that are dispersed at the state level. We hope that researchers will continue to refine this initial model of alignment in the context of a rapidly changing ECE policy field.

Refugee children and families’ positioning within resettlement and early childhood education policies in Aotearoa New Zealand

ABSTRACT This paper uses a framing derived from refugee and child rights conventions to analyse the positioning of young refugee children and their families in Aotearoa New Zealand’s resettlement policies, early childhood curriculum and early childhood education (ECE) funding policies. It also analyses data from interviews with participants from ECE settings who are working with refugee children and families, to discuss how policy is experienced in ECE practice, and makes recommendations about future policy directions. Main findings are that the Refugee Resettlement Strategy has critically important goals for refugee resettlement, but outcomes are narrowly defined and future-focused. While the ECE curriculum, Te Whariki, offers a strong basis for refugee families and children to come to belong and participate in Aotearoa New Zealand, and to have their own culture upheld, the rights of the young refugee child have no visibility within resettlement and ECE funding policies. We argue that a rights-based framework, focused on the young refugee child within their wider family, offers a productive lens through which to analyse refugee resettlement and ECE policies.

What Do Parents Want in Terms of Early Childhood Education and Care?

ABSTRACT In the development of early childhood education and care (ECEC) policy, it is important to understand parents’ decision-making in terms of both preferences and pragmatic constraints. Traditional data collection techniques such as self-reported surveys can elucidate parental preferences, however, these may differ from their actual decisions. In our research we marry qualitative responses about ECEC preferences with the results of a quasi-behavioral conjoint analysis to explore whether there is an association between parents’ stated and revealed preferences. In this study, 631 parents of young children in Toronto answered an open-ended question about ECEC preferences and a choice-based conjoint survey in which they chose between hypothetical providers that varied across ECEC attributes. Research Findings: Pearson’s point bi-serial correlations between stated and revealed preferences found that associations were non-existent or weak. Parent characteristics (ethnicity, education, income and primary language) moderately influenced the strength of these correlations. Our findings suggest that parents may not be able to fully articulate their preferences for ECEC, and that their stated preferences may not match their decisions. Practice or Policy: This study may have important implications for policymakers and researchers, as our findings support the use of complementary methods to collect information about ECEC preferences from stakeholders.

The 'new normal' and 'new normalisations' in early childhood education policy in Aotearoa New Zealand

When New Zealand entered pandemic alert level 3 and early childhood centres were being ‘nudged’ to re-open in order to offer support for parents returning to work, the Ministry of Health advised both Early Childhood centres and parents that children were not at risk of catching or spreading the virus. Fast-forward to Level 1 and the Ministry of Health has advised that an infant, who arrived into the country from overseas together with its parents, had the virus and was in a managed quarantine. This paper discusses this apparent policy contradiction between guidelines and evidence by collecting and analysing discourses that the nation has received from government agencies regarding children and early childhood education. This paper uses these discourses to explore the 'body' of knowledge regarding childhood and early childhood education, discourses that make childhood and early childhood education possible. We then apply a range of theoretical and conceptual tools to suggest some possible conditions of early childhood education (leading up to, during, and post-Covid-19). We employ health and medical metaphors to highlight ongoing tensions for early childhood education as a patient for whom neither education nor health Ministries take sufficient responsibility. The use of a health as a metaphor additionally focuses this paper on the new ‘normal’ of early childhood education and education policy.

Revisiting Piaget, his contribution to South African early childhood education

ABSTRACT The importance of a Piagetian approach is recognized in South African early childhood educational practices and teacher training, but the reality of the implementation of teaching and learning in the domain of early years opposes his philosophy in many ways. Our Early Childhood Education policies strongly advocate a Piagetian approach such as the emphasis on cognitive development, play-based learning, placing the child at the centre of learning and recognizing the holistic child. However, South African schools are contextually challenged with a disconnect between teacher training, policy and practice.

‘It all depends … ’ A Real Life Learning model informing childminding pedagogy in Ireland

ABSTRACT This doctoral research addressed the dearth of research focussed on childminding in Ireland, despite its significant role in national childcare provision. One overarching aim was to explore childminders’ pedagogy. The research was conducted within the theoretical framework of Ecocultural Theory (ECT) against the backdrop of Irish Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) policy on the eve of mandatory regulation of childminding. A mixed method approach was adopted, using the Ecocultural Family Interview for Childminders (EFICh) , including participants’ photographs, a case study survey, researcher field notes and holistic ratings. (Tonyan, Holli A. 2017. “Opportunities to Practice What Is Locally Valued: An Ecocultural Perspective on Quality in Family Child Care.” Early Education and Development 28: 727–744. doi:10.1080/10409289.2017.1303304). The research documents a previously unidentified cultural model of pedagogy among childminders, Real Life Learning, in which the primary goal is to explore learning opportunities presented by real life experiences as they arise. The childminder prioritises flexible, child-led, relationship-driven nurture and learning emerging from everyday experiences in enriched home and outdoor environments as well as within the local community. To engage Irish childminders into the future sustainably, any proposed system of regulation and supports should be aligned with this Real Life Learning model.

Perceptions of classroom quality and well-being among Black women teachers of young children

Concerns about preschool effectiveness have increasingly led to early childhood education policy changes focused on teacher quality. While these reforms intend to ensure children’s educational well-being, they rarely consider the impact policies have on teachers. Additionally, child care work is a feminized profession with distinct social experiences along lines of race and class. Black women who are early child care teachers live in poverty at rates disproportionate to their white counterparts. Through Black feminist focus group research, this paper documents perceptions of early childhood education quality mandates in Georgia and their impact on the well-being of 44 Black women teachers of infants, toddlers, and preschool age children. Findings suggest that the call for quality complicates Black teachers’ work, adds undue financial and emotional stress that takes a toll on their well-being, and interrupts personal dynamics with their loved ones. The paper calls for antiracist and antisexist structural support to interrupt both the stressors exacted by the field and the sociohistorical processes devaluing Black women’s work with children.

Unfreezing the Discursive Hegemonies Underpinning Current Versions of “Social Sustainability” in ECE Policies in Anglo–Celtic, Nordic and Continental Contexts

Social sustainability is linked to finding new ways of living together and strengthening social capital and participation, as well as to social justice and equity in societies, and it is becoming increasingly important for diverse multicultural societies. In this article, we trace understandings of social sustainability as established in Early Childhood Education (ECE) policy documents by following the chains of meaning connected to sense of belonging, local place and cultural diversity and through ECE collaboration with children’s parents/caregivers. Critical discourse analysis has been applied to trace the chains of meaning attached to these concepts in ECE steering documents in Australia, Croatia, Denmark, Norway, Poland, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden and the UK (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). Such analysis shows different ways in which the ECE polices indirectly work with social sustainability, as well as create critical distance from the sets of meanings established in each country (by proving a chain of meaning established in the policy documents of another country). In conclusion, we do not advocate in favour of any of the chains of meaning but argue for continual reflection and reflexivity, and we see research to be a particularly significant arena in which to unfreeze the taken for granted and sustainable notion.

Workforce diversity and quality improvement policies in early childhood education in East Asia

ABSTRACT This paper explores the relationship between workforce competence, migration, and quality improvement in the Asia-Pacific through analysis of Early Childhood Education (ECE) policy texts from three East Asia Summit countries. Content (word level) analysis of salient policy texts was undertaken to address two questions: How are culture and diversity conceptualized in these texts? How are diverse educators positioned in these texts? We show that, despite differing historical trajectories of ECE, policy frameworks in all three countries fail to sufficiently acknowledge the potential contribution of migrant educators to quality improvement initiatives. We conclude by calling for greater attention to workforce mobility and diversity in ECE policies, and for further research into the untapped competence of migrant educators.

Moderating Uncertainty: The Reception of Refugee Children in the German Early Childhood Education and Care Sector

Abstract Located at the crossroads of integration and early childhood education and care (ECEC) policies, this article draws on empirical research conducted from the perspective of ECEC centres to provide insights into the local reception of refugee children in Germany. In recent years, the ECEC sector in Germany has faced the challenge of organizing access to childcare for many newly arrived children and their families—a process that has been shaped by uncertainty for policymakers and service providers alike. The article analyses data from the first survey among ECEC centres throughout Germany on this topic. It sheds light on enrolment patterns of refugee children, admission procedures, support structures and local collaboration. The results reveal the uncertainties that ECEC centres faced after the 2015 ‘refugee crisis’, and their diverse approaches. To better understand the role of ECEC centres as crucial actors in local integration processes, a conceptualization as ‘street-level’ organizations is suggested.

Tracing Policy-relevant Information in Social Media: The Case of Twitter before and during the COVID-19 Crisis

Abstract Real-time social media data hold great conceptual promise for research and policymaking, but also face substantial limitations and shortcomings inherent to processing re-purposed data in near-real-time. This paper aims to fill two research gaps important for understanding utility of real-time social media data for policymaking: What policy-relevant information is contained in this data and whether this information changes in periods of abrupt social, economic, and policy change. To do so, this paper focuses on two salient policy areas heavily affected by the lockdown policies responding to the 2020 COVID-19 crisis – early childhood education and care policies, and labor market policies focused on (un)employment. We utilize Twitter data for a four-month period during the first wave of COVID-19 and data for the same four-month period the preceding year. We analyze this data using a novel method combining structural topic models and latent semantic scaling, which allows us to summarize the data in detail and to test for change of content between the period of ‘normalcy’ and period of ‘crisis’. With regards to the first research gap, we show that there is policy-relevant information in Twitter data, but that the majority of our data is of limited relevance, and that the data that is relevant present some challenges and limitations. With regards to the second research gap, we successfully quantify the change in relevant information between periods of ‘normalcy’ and ‘crisis’. We also comment on the practicality and advantages of our approach for leveraging micro-blogging data in near real-time.

Troubling Belonging: The Racialized Exclusion of Young Immigrants and Migrants of Color.

In this article, four Latina educators of Color trouble the neutrality of belonging, exploring its politics. They collectively revisit and reflect on their memories and lived experiences as immigrant children of Color and as young children of immigrants and migrants of Color in the United States. They employed pláticas as method to prompt the sharing of memories, experiences, and stories imparting personal knowledge, familial practices, and cultural histories. Through pláticas, they developed a collective understanding of their fragmented memories as situated representations of how belonging engenders othering children of immigrants and migrants of Color. As they reflected on the harm they withstood, named dehumanizing schooling experiences, and reflected on the exclusion and bordering etched in their memories, they noted how belonging had sponsored their marginalization. After audio-recording and transcribing their pláticas, they identified transcript sections associated with heightened emotional displays, shared resonance, and cultural memory. Then, they creatively recombined sections of original transcripts to reveal things about the experiences of young immigrant children of Color and of children of immigrants and migrants of Color that early childhood educators ought to know. Findings unveil the harm enacted by schooling on young immigrant children of Color and young children from immigrant and migrant families of Color in the name of belonging. Implications, offered as poetic advice, urge early childhood education policy and practice to upend the harmful pseudo-neutrality of belonging.

Government strategies for supporting the adult worker model in European countries: mixed implications for defamilisation

PurposeThis article explores the link between defamilisation studies and studies of the adult worker model and discusses the mixed implications that government strategies for supporting the adult worker model have for defamilisation. The adult worker model emphasises that all adult men and women ought to engage in formal employment; defamilisation studies stress the importance of enhancing women's chances of choosing (not) to perform important family roles such as the receiver of financial support and the care provider.Design/methodology/approachTwo new strategies (“condition building” and “rewarding/penalising”) for promoting the adult worker model are identified based on literature review; their empirical significance is explored through an examination of comparative data concerning early childhood education and care policies (ECEC) and reforms in pension age in 14 countries.FindingsThe evidence shows that promoting the adult worker model does not necessarily benefit all women. While the 14 countries provide ECEC to varying extents, the increase in pension age in most countries shows that governments adopt a “rewarding/penalising” strategy for promoting the adult worker model by allocating major welfare based on people's labour force participation. These pension reforms may generate a negative impact on women's chances of attaining financial autonomy.Originality/valueThis study presents two new strategies for promoting the adult worker model and shows the empirical significance of these strategies based on comparative data. It also highlights the importance of searching for alternative concepts, namely economic defamilisation, for guiding pension reforms.

Business managers in children’s playground : Exploring a problematic (or not!) identity construction of early childhood teachers in New Zealand

The impacts of neo-liberal education reforms on the early childhood education sector have been a focal point of scholarly critiques in New Zealand. Interestingly, only a few studies have addressed how teacher professional identities and professionalism have changed in response to the neo-liberal context of New Zealand early childhood education. It has been, however, recognised that understanding the complexity of teacher professional identities within the rapidly transforming landscape of early childhood education is a key consideration in implementing and sustaining a change agenda in education policies and practices. In this article, the author draws on data from her research study about how teachers’ professional identities have been reconstructed in response to the shifting discourses in New Zealand early childhood education policies and practices. Specifically, the author explores the construction of teachers as business managers, which has emerged through an interplay of discourses of marketisation and privatisation driving some of the country’s early childhood education policies and practices. It is argued that the construction of teachers as business managers has altered core professional ethical values underpinning the teaching profession, professionalism and the purpose of early childhood education in New Zealand, which were traditionally embedded in discourses of collective democracy, equity and social justice.

Educação infantil a partir das políticas públicas

Esse artigo tem como objetivo descrever a trajetória da educação infantil no campo das políticas públicas por meio de referenciais legais e documentos oficiais que marcaram o percurso desta etapa da educação básica até sua obrigatoriedade, efetivada pela Lei nº 12.796 publicada em 4 de abril de 2013 (BRASIL, 2013). Por meio de uma abordagem qualitativa e pesquisa de cunho bibliográfica, buscou-se compreender a nomenclatura educação infantil a partir de (REAL, 2000) e (KUHLMANN Jr, 1998); e as políticas públicas para educação infantil (BRASIL, 1988, 1996, 2013). Compreendeu-se que inicialmente os documentos oficiais tratavam do atendimento a criança por um viés assistencialista, e com o passar dos anos, após debates e mobilização de grupos favoráveis ao direito a educação, reconhece a criança como sujeito de direitos e logo, direito ao atendimento educacional e posteriormente a inclusão da educação infantil como etapa obrigatória para crianças dos quatro aos seis anos.

Studying curriculum as culture: early childhood policy documents in Greece and New Zealand

ABSTRACT Curriculum policy and enactment in early childhood education is a political phenomenon that plays out in particular cultural contexts. Comparative lenses to curriculum articulate locally constructed and implicit knowledge to external audiences. In doing so, global commonalities and tensions may become explicit. This paper interrogates curricular documents in Greece and New Zealand using selected questions from Joseph’s (2011a) heuristic of ‘curriculum as culture’. We do this through writing letters to each other that share our local knowledge and experiences and raise further questions. Although New Zealand and Greece are geographically and culturally two worlds apart, their curricular practices share certain discourses and have both been influenced by international trends. We argue that both countries’ documents relate to first-order change where the policy document may not, in itself, update or change prior practices.