This presentation will present a contextual and cultural fitted tool developed to measure and compare children’s learning in Danish early childhood day care centers.

Building on the ERS-line (e.g. Harms et al 2015) and based on empirical and theoretical research on the Danish curriculum we at UCN have developed contextual and cultural fitted indicators for quality. We have developed specific environmental rating scales for communities in Denmark.

In a formal study the new items and the rating scales are being tested in several communities and municipalities. Data consists of scored scales from approximately 80 day care centers and observations made by our staff.

Based on the concepts of the bio-ecological systems theory (e.g. Bronfenbrenner & Morris 2006) and a culture-sensitive interactionistic perspective (e.g. Sylva et al 2010) we aim to increase our knowledge on what quality in early childhood education and care is, how it can be understood, how it can be seen, and how it can be developed and evaluated.

There are still concerns about developing a separate measurement tool without having a common framework in which to site this.  The problem is that we seem mostly concerned with measuring the conditions for learning without a similar concern regarding what is being taught.  Acknowledging that the Danish curriculum - compared with the English - is limited, we need to look further into this and how the plans for learning (in Danish: Læreplaner) are applied across contexts. We include a database (www.legetek.dk) consisting of scores of children´s learning measured in subscales. The scales are developed upon the theory of proximal processes and proximal zones (Bronfenbrenner 1979; Vygotsky 1978) and themes from ICDP (International Child Development Programme) used in practice in Danish early childhood provisions and centers.

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