Over recent years, the status of early childhood education has greatly improved. One significant driver is the “discovery of early childhood as a key phase in autobiographical education acquisition” (Stamm & Edelmann 2013, 11). In this context, the results of the Starting Strong II report (OECD, 2006) led to measures being implemented in many European countries in order to establish “early childhood as the first integrated stage in the education system” (Stamm & Viehhauser 2009, 406). The manifestation and consequence of these efforts include the quantitative expansion of care infrastructure, with children spending more and more time from an increasingly early age in non-familial care contexts; indeed, it is possible to speak of a growing institutionalization of early childhood and a fundamental change in the “interplay of private and public responsibility” (Helm & Schwertfeger 2016, 9) regarding children. Consequently, it has become more important to establish whether early attendance at an extrafamilial care institution has a positive effect on a child’s educational career. Although there are scant studies on the long-term effects of early extrafamilial care on children’s later (educational) careers (ex. in Germany and Austria), research shows that positive effects of early childhood education depend on the quality or rather the interplay of various quality dimensions found in these institutions (cf. Tietze & Viernickel 2016).
In early childhood education, there is comparably little focus on migration-related diversity. Indeed, Diehm (2016, 342) detects a “marginalization of the fact of migration.” Overall, there is little empirical evidence to explain how early educational processes occur in the plurality and heterogeneity of the institutional care context, how early educational processes are constituted between the individual and social group and what role the approach to difference (as one aspect of migration-related plurality), as well as constructions of difference, plays on the part of the professionals. It can be assumed that the (professional) approach to difference occurs “at the intersection of two conflicting demands” (Betz & Bischoff 2017, 114): on the one hand, professionals face the challenge of factoring in heterogeneity so that cultural, religious, ethnic-national or linguistic differences as well as associated aspects for identity creation can be addressed and children (and parents) can feel that their individuality – which may also include aspects of culture, religion, language and ethnic-national background – has been acknowledged (cf. Siraj-Blatchford 2010). According to a “Pedagogy of diversity” (cf. Prengel 2006), professionals are obliged to treat children (and their parents) “equally” by acknowledging their “difference”; in other words, they should not negate, taboo or minimize their difference. On the other hand, this necessarily implies consolidating differences, which can itself lead to individuality being denied; this does not honour the principle of equality. In brief: acknowledging differences in this way risks reinforcing stereotypes and generalizations of difference and hence confirming structures of inequality, which are embedded in and/or reproduce (power) discourses in society as a whole (cf. Mecheril 2016). Processes of differentiation and the pedagogical approach to differences thus produced are therefore linked in everyday practice to the requirement to strike a balance between these two poles (cf. Betz & Bischoff 2017, 114f.). To do so, professionals need a self-reflective approach to their own (socio-)culturally and biographically influenced value and reference systems, since such notions explicitly and implicitly influence pedagogical actions – also in terms of how professionals deal with heterogeneity.
However, the empirical findings on these issues are minimal. There is a particular lack of studies that spotlight the deep dimension of educational attitudes and actions and hence also focus on the (subconscious/implicit) subject logics of the actors who have a significant influence on practical actions (cf. Cloos 2016).