Session Information
05 SES 02 A, Theories of Change in Area-Based Approaches and (Explaining) the Impact of Early Childhood Education
Paper Session
Contribution
1. BACKGROUND, PERSPECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE
1.1 The importance of ECEC
For several decades now, Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) is high on the political agenda in most European countries. According to the European Commission (EC, 2014a), ECEC can lay the foundations for later success in life in terms of education, well-being, employability, and social integration, especially for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. In addition to regular ECEC provisions offered in childcare centres and playgroups, various specific ECE programmes have been developed building on the recognition that delays caused by disadvantaged home environments cannot be eliminated by education alone and must be tackled before the children enter the formal school system. It is expected that high-quality programmes implemented in ECE institutions and the home situation compensate for home-school differences and deficits (EC, 2011). From a theoretical point of view such effects are mostly explained from cultural and educational capital notions of Pierre Bourdieu and James Coleman. ECE provisions vary across countries, but there also exists a huge variation within countries, and moreover there are many differences in the actual implementation of programmes between ECE institutions (EC, 2014b; CoRe, 2011).
1.2 ECE organization in the Netherlands
This paper focusses on the Netherlands, where compensatory ECE programmes are offered to children from disadvantaged backgrounds and are provided in three institutions (and sometimes also at home):
preschool: childcare centres, for 0-4 year olds, and playgroups, for 2-3 year olds;
early school: grades 1 and 2 of elementary schools (4-5 year olds).
ECE programmes in the preschool phase are the responsibility of municipalities; ECE in the early-school phase is the responsibility of school boards. Municipalities and school boards have much freedom as to how to select ECE target groups, how to organize ECE, and how to spend the budgets they receive from the central government.
1.3 Effects and bottlenecks
Numerous ECE programmes have been implemented and evaluated, mainly in the US, but also in Europe. The results are mixed and often ambiguous, however. Some longitudinal studies show positive effects, many other studies yield no or negative effects, or effects that fade out (e.g., Fukkink, 2014; Lowenstein, 2011; Yoshikawa et al., 2014). Recently several studies conducted in the Netherlands even found negative effects of ECE (Driessen, 2012). According to Bennett (2012), three elements are crucial in realising positive effects: sufficient duration and/or intensity, high quality, and appropriate follow-up and support.
Several bottlenecks have been observed in the Netherlands (Driessen, 2012; Inspectie van het Onderwijs, 2013):
The range of services provided tends to be very diverse and highly fragmented.
The services are often not based on objectives related to the specific cognitive, linguistic or social–emotional development and delays of children.
One cannot speak of alignment between the organization and content of the service in the preschool and the primary school years.
A shortage of places, which can lead to selective use by particular groups of parents, to segregation along the lines of ethnicity and income, and to not reaching the target group.
The ECE centres do not always meet the necessary standards of quality. Especially the low level of both language proficiency and interaction skills of many ECE playgroup leaders is worrisome.
1.4 Research questions
In this study the focus is on the preschool phase. Central are the following questions:
How are the ECE target group children identified?
How is ECE implemented in practice by the preschool staff?
The general aim is to shed more light into the black box of why ECE does not provide the expected positive outcomes in the Netherlands.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
REFERENCES Bennett, J. (2012). ECEC for children from disadvantaged backgrounds: Findings from a European literature review and two case studies. Brussels: European Commission. Burger, K. (2010). How does early childhood care and education affect cognitive development? An international review of the effects of early interventions for children from different social backgrounds. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 25, 140-165. Camilli, G., et al. (2010). Meta-analysis of the effects of early education interventions on cognitive and social development. Teachers College Record, 112, 579-620. CoRe (2011). Competence Requirements in Early Childhood Education and Care. London: University of East London / Ghent: University Ghent. Crane, J., & Barg, M. (2003). Do early childhood intervention programs really work? Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy. Driessen, G. (2012). Variatie in Voor- en Vroegschoolse Educatie. Een onderzoek naar de uit-eenlopende wijzen waarop in gemeenten vorm wordt gegeven aan VVE. Nijmegen: ITS. EC (2014a). Early Childhood Education and Care. On 151214 retrieved from http://ec.europa.eu/education/policy/school/early-childhood_en.htm. EC (2014b). Key data on Early Childhood Education and Care in Europe. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Fukkink, R. (2014). Samenvatting van Werken aan pedagogische kwaliteit. Tijdschrift voor Orthopedagogiek, 53(11) 471-480. Gorey, K. (2011). Early Childhood Education: A meta-analytic affirmation of the short- and long-term benefits of educational opportunity. School Psychology Quarterly, 16, 9-30. Inspectie van het Onderwijs (2013). Extra aandacht nodig voor achterstanden bij het jonge kind. Utrecht: Inspectie van het Onderwijs. Karoly, L., Kilburn, M., & Cannon, J. (2005). Early childhood interventions. Proven results, future promise. Santa Monica, CA: RAND. Lowenstein, A., (2011). Early Care and Education as educational panacea: What do we really know about its effectiveness? Educational Policy, 25(1), 92-114. Penn, H. (2009). Early Childhood Education and Care. Key lessons from research for policy makers. Brussels: European Commission. Pianta, R., et al. (2009). The effects of preschool edu¬cation: What we know, how public policy is or is not aligned with the evidence base, and what we need to know. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 10, 49-88. UNESCO (2010). Caring and Learning Together. A cross-national study of integration of early childhood care and education within education. Paris: UNESCO. Yoshikawa, H., et al. (2013). Investing in our future: The evidence base on preschool education. Ann Arbor, MI: Society for Research in Child Development.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.