On Quality And Autonomy In times Of Economic Crisis: The Greek Early Childhood Education And Care Sector

Author(s):

Panagiotis Kalogerakis(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

ERG SES G 13, Youth and Education

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-08

09:00-10:30

Room:

391. [Main]

Chair:

Margaret Eleanor Malloch

Contribution

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) services are viewed as fields of variable and intensive government regulation (Osgood, 2004). Since standardization has become prominent the OECD has been established as a global ‘bench-maker’ of standards between nation-states and their education institutions (Rinne & Ozga, 2013: 98) - in the case of ECEC through "Starting Strong 3" (2012). The rise of this 'transnational policy orthodoxy' (Jones, 2013: 1) developed by the EU and the OECD and expressed in mechanisms of governance, calibrates the policies of member-states and leads to a constraining of policy makers and educators' autonomy.

The quality issue at all levels of education and in the ECEC sector has become a policy priority for the European Commission, emphasizing its role in eliminating social and cultural inequalities and underachievement (EU, 2011a; Leseman, 2009). However family poverty, aggravated by the social austerity measures that Greece and other European countries face, reduces the likelihood of children's participation in ECEC (Bennett, 2013) or hampers their access to quality provision (Gambaro et al, 2013). Austerity, a consequence of globalizing processes, may lead to shrinking provision within childcare markets, since their "clientele" is affected by growing unemployment, which inevitably generates the risk of ECEC becoming out of reach (Lloyd and Penn, 2014) and of low quality for deprived children (Vandenbroeck and Lazzari, 2014).

This fiscal crisis generates what Lloyd and Penn (2014) identified as 'market pressures', which cause a deregulation of the field identified by the implementation of quality standards' relaxation proposals. Such conditions could directly affect quality and may reflect the natural tendency of ECEC providers - If seen as a market - to favor economically sound localities and maybe - as seen in various cases in the Greek capital, Athens - withdraw from disadvantaged areas. This peculiar deregulation, driven by the economic crisis, collides with the urge for regulation of the rather chaotic field of the Greek ECEC provision and triggers the problematic behind other European countries in crisis. Viewing education - and particularly ECEC - as a market, creates risks exacerbated by the current economic austerity. Consequently the outcomes of such market-efficient models range from social equity and state solidarity risks to the lurking privatisation, which is suggested as a universal panacea to issues of funding and quality (Peters, 2012).

My doctoral research, on which the present paper draws, is oriented towards the global/ European debates surrounding policies related to ECEC and practices in Greece. The aim is to research the role of International Organizations in the simultaneous 'economization' of education policy and the 'educationalization' of economic policy (Sellar and Lingard, 2013: 200). Hence, the processes of regulation and deregulation, the way they are decontextualized and recontextualized at national and municipal level and the consequences for ECEC pose as key issues of this research.

The claim of this paper is that several key players of this field seek regulation through the dissemination of good practices mainly suggested by supranational organizations like the OECD and the EU. Through policy networking their aim is to exchange practices and influence service delivery in the ECEC sector. Following Ball and Junemann (2012) it is important to identify the actors and interactions within and across this network and also how governance networks bring into play particular kinds of expert knowledge. Therefore basic research questions are: How autonomy and external regulation are played out in the Greek ECEC in times of economic crisis? Who defines quality in ECEC? Through what processes and which contexts? With what consequences for those participating in such institutions and with what impact on the identities of the professionals in this field?

Method

Early childhood education in Greece is mainly offered in ECEC Centres under the auspices of Local Municipal Authorities. Traditionally their principal objective has been care and they are deemed as autonomous to design their curricula and develop their own policies and practices. Their directors are elected councillors - usually not related to education - and their staff is characterized as heterogeneous - consisting of University, Technological and Vocational level educators. During times of European but also global economic crisis, notions such as quality and autonomy may be conceptualized in different ways with implications for the institutions and issues of equity and justice. Therefore, this research explores the uneven and diverse field of the Greek Municipal ECEC provision, which runs under the auspices of local Municipal authorities and the Ministry of Interior. The aim is to produce accounts of quality and also to analyse the influences global processes exert on this field, given also the potentially significant differences in material and cultural resources among different municipalities. Therefore the research focuses on policy makers and middle level employees - Heads of ECEC centres in different Municipalities in order to grasp their perceptions and stances in political and practical terms. Semi-structured interviews and questionnaires are used to produce qualitative and quantitative data. The research sample consists of 18 Municipalities from 6 Greek local regions. An important consideration in constructing the sample was to explore municipalities that have the potential to provide us with rich data. The Municipalities vary from local and national trend - standard setters in terms of ECEC quality, to municipalities that receive children from underprivileged backgrounds. Some of these municipalities usually have the means to get higher funding, compared for example to municipalities in the periphery, because they are densely populated and disseminate their practices through the Internet following the OECD's good-practice recommendations. Some of the Municipalities however have not remained immune from the pressures generated by the imposition of state austerity regimes and part of their ECEC provision could also involve the tackling of poverty and social exclusion. Of equal importance for this study is also the description and analysis of EU, National and the OECD’s documents, in order to holistically uncover the policy debates surrounding the uneven field of ECEC nationally and internationally. The initial approach is through qualitative content analysis, but methods of critical discourse analysis will also be utilized (Jorgensen and Phillips, 2002).

Expected Outcomes

This paper and my study of policies on quality and practices in education provision in the ECEC sector are located in the critical literature exploring the new political regime for education being ushered in globally by the OECD and the EU. Particularly, it is oriented towards the debates surrounding policies and practices related to ECEC at global, European and national level. By researching the role of International Organizations in influencing the Greek Municipal ECEC provision and the way they are mediated at national and subnational/ local levels, this research seeks to explore the complex notion of quality in ECEC in a period of international and national austerity measures during which values such as state education provision and welfare are considered outmoded. This study is also expected to generate reflections on the impact of the economic crisis on ECEC demand and participation not only in the Greek context, but also regarding other European countries, which face similar financial struggles. Such reflections could be of great importance considering the Commission's (2013) "Education and Training 2020" goals for at least 95% participation of four-year olds in ECEC by 2020. The analysis of the interviews and questionnaires from policy makers and middle-level directors of ECEC responsible for the highly diverse Greek Municipal ECEC sector seeks to unveil their accounts of quality and autonomy. Considering the existing differences in material and cultural resources among municipalities in Greece this study seeks to explore whether policies on quality also have implications for (in)equality.

References

Ball, J and Junemann, C. (2012) Networks, New Governance and Education. Policy Press, Bristol. Bennett, J. (2013) 'Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) for Children from Disadvantaged Backgrounds: Findings from a European Literature Review and Two Case Studies'. Final Report' Brussels, European Commission. European Commission. (2011a) 'Early Childhood Education and Care: Providing all Our Children with the Best Start for the World of Tomorrow' Communication from the Commission 66 Final. Brussels: European Commission. Education and Culture DG. European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, (2013) Education and Training in Europe 2020: Responses from the EU Member States. Eurydice Report. Brussels: Eurydice. Gambaro, L., K. Stewart, and J. Waldfogel. (2013) 'A Question of Quality: Do Children from Disadvantaged Backgrounds Receive Lower Quality Early Years Education and care in England?' CASE paper 171. London: London School of Economics. Jones, K. (2013) Education and Europe: The Politics of Austerity. Radicaledbooks, London. Jorgensen, M. and Phillips, L. (2002) Discourse Analysis, as Theory and Method. Sage, London. Leseman, P. (2009) 'Tackling Social and Educational Inequalities Through Early Childhood Education and Care in Europe' A Eurydice report'. Brussels: European Commission. Lipman, P. (2013) 'Economic crisis, accountability, and the state’s coercive assault on public education in the USA' Journal of Education Policy, 28:5, 557-573. Lloyd, E. & Penn, H. (2014) 'Childcare markets in an age of austerity' European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 22:3, 386-396. OECD, (2012) Starting Strong III: A Quality Toolbox for Early Childhood Education and Care. Paris, OECD Publishing. Osgood, J. (2004) ‘Time to get down to business?’ Journal of Early Childhood Research 2(1): 5–24. Peters, M. (2012) 'Neoliberalism, Education and the Crisis of Western Capitalism' Policy Futures in Education, 10 no 2: 134-141. Rinne & Ozga, (2013) 'The OECD and the Global Re-Regulation of Teachers' Work: Knowledge-Based Regulation Tools and Teachers in Finland and England' in T. Sedon, & J. Levin, (Ed.) Educators, Professionalism and Politics: Global Transitions, National Spaces and Professional Projects. London, Routledge. Sellar, S & Lingard, B. (2013) 'PISA and the Expanding Role of the OECD in Global Educational Governance' in H. Meyer, & A. Benavot, (2013) Pisa, Power and Policy: The Emergence of Global Educational Governance. Oxford Studies in Comparative Education. Vandenbroeck, M. & Lazzari, A. (2014) 'Accessibility of early childhood education and care: a state of affairs' European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 22:3, 327-335.

Author Information

Panagiotis Kalogerakis (presenting / submitting)

University of the Peloponnese

Department of Social and Educational Policy

Athens, Zografou

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