Eva Lloyd

Richness or Rigour? A Discussion of Systematic Reviews and Evidence-Based Policy in Early Childhood

In this article, the authors report on the experiences of the Early Years Review Group, one of a number of education groups contracted to carry out systematic reviews for the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Coordinating (EPPI) Centre in the United Kingdom. The Early Years Review Group has carried out three systematic reviews: one on the impact of integration of care and education in the early years; one on providing support to young children affected by war and armed conflict; and one on the long-term cost benefits of early childhood interventions. Using the evidence from the third review, the authors address the issue of what constitutes useful evidence for policy makers in the field of early childhood and whether certain kinds of evidence are privileged. They conclude that the systematic review process is an independent and useful tool for analysing and critiquing existing studies.

Childcare markets in an age of austerity

ABSTRACT Public support provided for European early childhood education and care (ECEC) systems varies considerably. European ECEC systems tend to form part of a mixed economy, in which the state, private-for-profit and private-not-for-profit providers all play a role in ECECs provision, funding and regulation, representing a market model. ECEC privatisation and marketisation in the UK has gone further than in other EU member states and there is growing evidence that these developments, including corporatisation, risk deepening, consolidating or widening inequalities of access to quality early childhood provision. The Norwegian and French systems illustrate how direct public funding and stringent regulation may counter childcare markets’ potentially negative impacts. As economic austerity makes its mark on Europe, childcare market challenges are growing and the need to rethink the appropriateness of delivering UK ECEC under market conditions becomes more acute.

Early Childhood Education and Care Policy in England under the Coalition Government.

This paper reviews developments in policy on early childhood education and care – early years – under the Coalition Government in England. Three factors came to define the Coalition’s performance and record in this area: ambivalence about the rationales for the two areas of early education and childcare; a disconnect between early years and other social welfare policy approaches; and the dominant influence on policy of a political belief in market operations as the favoured delivery model for early years services. Successive early years policy documents also reflected the Coalition’s shifting position on young children’s rights and interests in relation to early childhood education and care (ECEC).

using systematic reviews to investigate research in early childhood

This article explores how the evidence base for aspects of early childhood has been explored using systematic research synthesis methods developed at the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Co-ordinating Centre (EPPI-Centre). Three early childhood systematic reviews have been carried out using EPPI-Centre procedures and tools. The article discusses the principles underlying systematic research synthesis, the way in which the three reviews were set up, the processes involved in reviewing studies for the reviews, and the nature and generalizability of the reviews’ findings.

Working with Young Children Who are Victims of Armed Conflict

Young children are particularly vulnerable to war and armed conflict. Although the long-term priority is always to try to unravel and reduce violence and conflict, in the short term some interventions may reduce suffering. In this article the authors report on recent evidence on psychosocial interventions designed to mitigate the impact of armed conflict on young childrens development. A systematic review method was used to explore evaluations of interventions addressing the cognitive and psychosocial development of young children directly affected by armed conflict. In general the literature suggests therapeutic interventions drawing on the concept of post-traumatic stress disorder run the risk of imposing cultural norms from the global North. In contrast, more general psychosocial interventions and normalisation routines are likely to be more effective. But recent reviews also suggest that evaluation of interventions with children affected by armed conflict is weak. More robust evidence is badly needed.

Early childhood education and care and poverty: Working paper prepared for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation

This review of the existing body of knowledge concerning the links between poverty and early childhood education and care (ECEC) provision1 aims to inform the realisation of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s 2015 UK anti-poverty strategy development programme. It has three main objectives: To explore the relationship between poverty and early childhood service quality, affordability and accessibility. To examine mostly domestic and some international research evidence on the prevention and reduction of poverty through early childhood policy and practice interventions. To recommend what should be included in JRF’s UK anti-poverty strategies in relation to early childhood education and care. This evidence review is one of a series of 34 such reviews commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) to inform a programme of anti-poverty strategies for the UK to be published in 2015/16. Thus the definition of poverty employed here is the one developed by JRF to underpin this programme: ‘When a person’s resources (mainly their material resources) are not sufficient to meet their minimum needs (including social participation)’. In the case of young children, this definition is mediated by the conditions within the households they live in and decisions made by parents as proxies for their children.

Co-producing early years policy in England under the Coalition Government

During the first half of the current Coalition Government, co-production – a form of participatory governance – was implemented widely in the conceptualization, design and implementation of early years policies. Seen as a revolutionary approach to public service reform, resulting in more effective and more cost-effective public services, the joint approach to co-production by the Department for Education and the Department of Health built on the Labour Government’s strategy to involve ‘active citizens’ as stakeholders in public policy development. Local authority early years managers, directors of children’s services and education trade union officers were among education sector stakeholders involved in this process. Co-production is defined here as sharing features of two models of participatory governance identified by Skelcher and Torfing (2010) in their institutional taxonomy of this concept. The actual experience of co-producing early childhood policy suggests that politics may trump policy-making, despite a high-level commitment to co-production.

Talking everyday science to very young children: a study involving parents and practitioners within an early childhood centre

ABSTRACT The acquisition of everyday scientific concepts by 3–6-year-old children attending early childhood institutions has been widely studied. In contrast, research on science learning processes among younger children is less extensive. This paper reports on findings from an exploratory empirical study undertaken in a ‘stay and play’ service used by parents with children aged 0–3 and located within an East London early childhood centre. The research team collaborated with practitioners to deliver a programme of activities aimed at encouraging parents’ confidence in their own ability to support emergent scientific thinking among their young children. The programme generated children’s engagement and interest. Parents and practitioners reported increased confidence in their ability to promote young children’s natural curiosity at home and in early childhood provision. The authors see no reason for positing qualitative differences between the way children acquire scientific and other concepts in their earliest years.

Parents talking everyday science with young children

This report is the evaluation of an early years project which was developed by members of the Cass Early Childhood Studies Research Group with funding from the 2015 UEL Civic Engagement Fund. The project aimed to encourage parents‟ confidence in their own ability to support emergent scientific thinking among their young children. The project was modelled on an early years initiative undertaken a few years ago in rural Bangladesh. The original Bangladeshi project was pioneered by Dr Sue Dale Tunnicliffe, Reader in Science Education at University College London‟s Institute of Education, and chair of CASTME, the Commonwealth Association of Science, Technology and Mathematics Educator.