Partnerships between Early Day Care Centres and families are usually considered as positively effective and in the interest of children, especially in the context of inclusion and diversity (European Agency 2017, pp 35; critically Betz, Bischoff-Pabst, Eunicke & Menzel 2020; Knoll 2018). Initiatives like Early Excellence focus explicitly the openness to communities and the collaboration with different families (ct. Whalley 2017). Their main objective is the empowerment of families which is why they address them as equal partners. Also networking between Early Education and Early Intervention is mainly seen as supportive for children and their families (DeVore, Miole & Harder 2011).

This appears in a different light with a view on the current shift in the public and political discourse in Germany which is mainly characterized by a more dominant view of children as objects of investment (critically Betz & Bischoff 2018). Beliefs of an ‘optimal’ child’s development in this context seem to have replaced the idea of a “normal” childhood (ct. Kelle & Mierendorff 2013; Nadesan, 2010). Both leads to a rising task of prevention and "early detection" in Early Day Care Centres motivated by political initiatives which is meaningful for perceptions of normality (Kelle & Mierendorff 2013; Link 2008) and partnerships between educators and families (Betz et al. 2020).

Coming from here we take up one of the crucial findings of a completed empirical study on the collaboration of Day Care and Early Intervention (Seitz, Hamacher & Horst 2020; Hamacher & Seitz 2020), namely momentous inconsistencies and frictions within the inclusion-orientated collaboration of both professionals of Early Education and Early Intervention – and impacts on the partnerships of each with families. In spite of the fact that the activation of Early Intervention is dependent on the consent of a child’s parents which seems to give them a powerful position, our study shows that families recede into the background of the collaboration. Decisive in this context are ascriptions of normality and the families' willingness to adapt to the dominant discourse of the “child at risk” which leads to different variations of othering (Riegel 2016) within the collaboration of Early Education and Early Intervention. 

Reasoned by the fact that Early Intervention relies on case constitutions the conflictual collaboration of the different professions gets dominated by dynamics of pathologization but refers implicit to concepts of social “normality” and “difference” and linked aspects of social inequality (Hamacher 2020). Within this discourse families get positioned as an instance having to accept the presumed difference of their child to motivate Early Intervention: consequently any resistance of these families seems to be a resistance against the interest of their own child. This dynamic leads also to requests to parents for self subjectivations as different and problematic – and finally in disempowerment of families accompanied by strong alliances of the – collaborating – professionals. Our analysis and our conclusions will be discussed by using empirical material of the qualitative part of the study – and seen from a critical perspective on educational inequality and the dipositive of prevention.

The research project »Cooperation of Early Education and Early intervention« (»Kooperation Kita und Frühförderung«; 2017-2019) is based on a mixed methods design and focuses n = 150 Day Care Centres and Early Intervention Centres in North Rhine Westfalia (Germany) in the quantitative sub-study (Seitz, Hamacher & Horst 2020). Our overarching research question was how inclusion and participation of children and their families can be ensured via the approach of networking between Early Education and Early Intervention. In a three-step survey online-questionnaires, focussed observations, group discussions and guided interviews were conducted. In the qualitative sub-study we investigated eight contrasting cases of cooperating Day Care Centres and Early Intervention Centres in different regions of North Rhine Westfalia. Using a reconstructive approach and a microanalytic perspective we analysed the collective knowledge of the professional actors in the collaboration (Bohnsack 2017). Therefore we conducted group discussions which were qualitatively analysed with the documentary method (Bohnsack 2010, 2017) and framed with a theoretical background of a practeological approach (Hamacher 2020). In this context especially the orientations of actors in Early Education and Early Intervention towards families and partnerships with families turned to be particularly meaningful. In our presentation we shed light on the group discussions with professionals of Day Care and Early Intervention and the reconstructed orientations, focusing particularly the described dynamics of othering and processes of empowerment and disempowerment of families.

As the findings of our study show, primarily classifying categories that justify Early Intervention prevail in the group discussions. These are related to the prevention task of Early Intervention in Germany which can be described as focussing children at risk and preventing performance failure in school, whereas the crucial idea of exchanging different perspectives in a multiprofessional setting is mostly marginalised in this interaction. The analysis makes clear that the task of collaboration provides a specific ambivalence by supporting the participation of children and families within a policy framework that is characterized by prevention. This dispositive leads to inconsistencies and frictions in the collaboration of different professions as well as in the partnership of each with the families. Based on this, it is almost impossible for the involved actors to reflect their own practice and the case constitution in a critical way. Furthermore, depending on the socio economic status of families as well as their habitual patterns and correspondence to the 'normal image' of a family it is more likely for children to become a case of multiprofessional collaboration and for their families to be addressed as problematic and different (Hamacher & Seitz 2020). Our study shows that families recede into the background of the collaboration, depending on ascriptions of normality and the families' willingness to adapt to the dominant discourse which leads to different variations of othering (Attia, Köbsell & Prasad 2015; Riegel 2016) within the collaboration and results in a request of self subjectivations as different and problematic for families. In conclusion our study makes clear that by connecting Day Care Centres and Early Intervention Centres inequalities might get rather reinforced than reduced and empowerment of families rather weakened than strengthened (Hamacher & Seitz 2020).

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