Early Childhood

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glenda MacNaughton
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
The World ◽  
Education And Care ◽  
History Of ◽  
Informal Settings ◽  
Early Childhood Institutions ◽  
Different Parts ◽  
Over Time

Early childhood is the period of childhood between birth and eight years of age. While the provision of targeted educational and care programs to meet the specific and particular needs of children in their early childhood years has a long history in many countries, there is considerable contemporary debate about what the nature of those programs should be and how they are best funded and evaluated. In this bibliography there is a brief overview of the history of early childhood education and care internationally, pointing to the differences in philosophies and practices that have grown over time in different parts of the world. However, the prime focus is on contemporary influences and debates in policies and their intents, and curriculum philosophies and practices in the provision of education and care for children in their early childhood years. With increasing investment in such education and care, there is increasing debate in several disciplines about how best to conceptualize and build practices that address children’s developing capacities at this age, to ensure that their rights are acknowledged and enacted, and to take account of issues of equity and fairness that shape the lives of young children. These concerns are linked with an increasing interest in the relationships between parents and early childhood institutions and spaces, how early childhood institutions and informal settings connect with the formal years of schooling, and how specific policies that address the needs and capacities of children in their early childhood years are produced that are relevant in diverse contexts, especially in non-Western contexts.

“Caballito blanco, ¡vuelve pa’ tu pueblo!”: Troubling and reclaiming the historical foundations of Chilean early childhood education

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ximena Galdames Castillo
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Curriculum And Pedagogy ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Education And Care ◽  
History Of ◽  
Global North ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Education Field

In accordance with the white patriarchal foundations of the early childhood education field of the global north, Chile’s early childhood education has a colonial and androcentric origin which has been left unquestioned. Reviews of Chilean early childhood education omit/ignore other socio-political agendas, such as class, gender, and ethnicity that still shape the current landscape. This article reconstructs the foundations of Chilean early childhood education through a reconceptualized mestiza history of the present. This approach challenges the neutrality of Chilean early childhood education and seeks to reclaim it by examining the underpinning regimes of truth that re-colonize children and women moving within and inhabiting the field. Analyses show how two main strands shape(d) early childhood education and care: social (and currently, multiagency) policies, and curriculum and pedagogy. The relationship between these strands has been recursive and contradictory and overlapping over time. However, their mixture creates an illusion of literal transposition as a syncretic effect, which under close examination exposes its fault lines.

scholarly journals Recognizing politics in the nursery: Early childhood education institutions as sites of mundane politics

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zsuzsa Millei ◽  
Kirsi Pauliina Kallio
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Children’S Agency ◽  
Education And Care ◽  
The One ◽  
Early Childhood Institutions

In his inspirational article titled ‘Bringing politics into the nursery’, Peter Moss argues for early childhood institutions to become places of ‘democratic political practice’. In this article, the authors add to Moss’s call and argue that these institutions are sites of ‘mundane political practice’, containing various attitudinal orientations and ideologies, and including many kinds of purposive activities. Recognizing different dimensions of political life in institutional spaces where children lead their lives requires a differentiation between two types of politics: first, official politics and policies that aim to institute certain ideals in early childhood education and care and, second, everyday politics unfolding in communities that involve people as political subjects from birth until death. When the latter is discussed in early childhood research, if at all, it is rarely identified in political terms, which the authors consider problematic. The lacking recognition of mundane politics denies important aspects of children’s agency, which is prejudicial in itself. Moreover, such ignorance may lead to unintended consequences in democratization processes, like the one suggested by Moss. Imposing political ideals without recognizing children’s existing political agencies carries a risk of interfering with their political lives so that some children may feel misrecognized or find their capacities to act hindered or their activities misunderstood. In order to avoid such outcomes, this article is an argument for research and pedagogies that acknowledge and scaffold children’s political agencies at large.

The United States and the World: A History of Connections in Early Childhood Education

2009 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blythe E. Hinitz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Early Childhood ◽  
The United States ◽  
Modern Technology ◽  
Education Practice ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Nursery Schools ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Postal Mail

As examples from this issue show, early education practice around the world has long been intertwined and the care and education provided for young children in most places draws at least in part from non-indigenous sources. A review of the articles reveals numerous parallels and even direct linkages between U.S. early childhood advocates and educators and each of the countries highlighted. Similarities are to be found, for example, in their patterns of development and in the impediments faced by the advocates and founders of day nurseries, kindergartens, and nursery schools in each country. Collaboration between early childhood educators in the United States and their counterparts around the world, beginning in the 1800s with ocean voyages and postal mail, has grown today with the use of modern technology and the continuation of consultative visits by U.S. experts to many lands.

Selected History of Early Childhood Care and Education

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
International Perspective ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Current Time ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Early Childhood Care ◽  
Childhood Care ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

A glimpse into a chronological journey of the lives and ideas of educationalists that have globally influenced the field of early childhood care and education (ECCE) is a necessary step for all educators. To better understand today’s practices as well as today’s errors, misunderstandings, and reinventions, this necessary time travel will offer the reader an international perspective on the sources of multiple concepts in the field of ECCE. By being exposed to the sometimes contentious and messy field of early childhood education, educators and early childhood scholars can consider the ideas and practices that best fit their current time, context, culture, and place. Once introduced to historical ideas and principles of practice in the field of early childhood education, readers can identify the roots of core concepts that are applied today in the education of the very young. Early childhood scholars and practitioners are advocating and fighting to be more valued by policy, governments, and the society as whole, and this ages-long struggle can be supported by the strong voices of the past. The biographical writings in this article will offer the reader only a glimpse into those efforts, a peek at the extreme activism of some and fight until death of others. In the last section, Comparative Studies, the reader will discover a network of connections between ideas, philosophies, practice, and experiences of thinkers from different times and different parts of the world. This network of ideas, if studied and qualitatively summarized, will support beginner educators to crystalize their own views and form their own teaching philosophy. This article contains a General Overviews chapter and one with Academic Articles that will warm up the reader by presenting overarching images of the tumultuous history of ECCE. Next is a chapter on the International History of Early Childhood Care and Education. The article continues with a chronological succession of thinkers who have built and strengthened the foundation of education in general, and of early childhood care and education in particular. They are introduced through their own voices and then analyzed by followers and critics. The selection of thinkers is far from being comprehensive and is based on their globally arching influence. Most of the thinkers proposed change, and some implemented reforms that are still viable today. They have all lived, to a degree, a Sisyphean effort to convince a world of adults that children matter more than previously thought. These past and present practitioners and theorists had tried to convince the world that children are not unfinished human beings, but competent and complex at every age. A surprising element of the historical insight will be the contemporary feel of some ideas that date back hundreds of years.

scholarly journals Book Review of The Early Advantage: Early Childhood Systems That Lead by Example by Sharon Lynn Kagan (Ed.)

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie Blome
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Social Value ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Political Ideologies ◽  
The World ◽  
Education And Care ◽  
Early Childhood Systems ◽  
Context Specific ◽  
International Research Project

This review critiques Sharon Lynn Kagan’s The Early Advantage: Early Childhood Systems That Lead by Example (2018). Kagan posits that early childhood education and care (ECEC) systems throughout the world are complex and fragmented. Burgeoning neuroscientific research and shifting political ideologies acknowledge the economic and social value of investing in ECEC and beg re-examination of outdated narratives (Kagan 2018). Responding with a timely analysis, The Early Advantage details the results of a comparative international research project designed to analyze six strategically chosen jurisdictions with successful ECEC systems. A thorough account of each country’s structural, fiscal, and ideological components provides context for systemic challenges and triumphs. Kagan’s concluding synthesis connects ideas for the reader and reveals emerging narratives to guide ECEC leaders in moulding high-quality delivery systems that are equitable, efficient, and context specific.

Interactive acculturation of Turkish-Belgian parents and children in Flanders: A case study of Beringen

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 417-428
Author(s):  
Özgün Ünver ◽  
Ides Nicaise
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Maternal Employment ◽  
Domain Specificity ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Parents And Children ◽  
Education And Care ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Town

This article tackles the relationship between Turkish-Belgian families with the Flemish society, within the specific context of their experiences with early childhood education and care (ECEC) system in Flanders. Our findings are based on a focus group with mothers in the town of Beringen. The intercultural dimension of the relationships between these families and ECEC services is discussed using the Interactive Acculturation Model (IAM). The acculturation patterns are discussed under three main headlines: language acquisition, social interaction and maternal employment. Within the context of IAM, our findings point to some degree of separationism of Turkish-Belgian families, while they perceive the Flemish majority to have an assimilationist attitude. This combination suggests a conflictual type of interaction. However, both parties also display some traits of integrationism, which points to the domain-specificity of interactive acculturation.

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