Helen Penn

The World Bank's View of Early Childhood

This article explores the World Banks view of early childhood as an example of the globalization of childhood. It argues that the Bank pursues neoliberal economic policies that exacerbate the gap between rich and poor nations and between the rich and poor within countries. These policies affect childrens lives adversely, but they are legitimized by the Bank in a variety of ways. The Bank claims to have childrens interests at heart, and identifies early childhood as a fruitful site for interventions. It draws on traditional Anglo-American notions of family, community and childhood in its justification for these interventions. The article explores the inherent contradictions in these policies towards young children.

Childcare Market Management: how the United Kingdom Government has reshaped its role in developing early childhood education and care

This article reviews early education and care policies in the United Kingdom since 1997, when a Labour Government came to power, and sets them in the wider context of international changes. It argues that the Labour Government has, by intention and by default, supported the development of private sector, and especially corporate sector childcare. Corporate childcare has increased sevenfold in the period. The rapid scale of these changes has been ignored, or uncritically accepted, by most commentators. However, the Governments childcare policies have not had the anticipated result of increasing the numbers of mothers in the workforce, with the result that there is considerable oversupply of childcare provision. As a result, the private sector has experienced turmoil, as occupancy rates have fallen to an average of 77%, and the sector has become unprofitable. Within 2005–06 many nurseries closed, and there has been a consolidation of the remainder of the market. The private sector is now actively lobbying for more subsidies and a relaxation of regulations. The article concludes that, despite recent difficulties, trends towards private sector growth will continue and that research is urgently needed to investigate and document the changes.

Travelling policies and global buzzwords: How international non-governmental organizations and charities spread the word about early childhood in the global South:

This article is based on a web-search commissioned by an international charity to review the work of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) and charities which promote and support early childhood education and care (ECEC) in the global South. The article examines examples of such initiatives. It is suggested that there is considerable commonality of view and overlap of activities between INGOs and charities whatever their origin in the global North, and whichever countries they are operating in, in the global South. These findings are analysed in the light of theories of knowledge transfer in the field of international development.

Gambling on the Market: The Role of For-Profit Provision in Early Childhood Education and Care.

Since 1997 there has been an unprecedented expansion of the childcare for-profit market in the UK. The repercussions of this for understanding of ‘quality’ and definitions of good practice for early education and care have barely been explored. But in the current economic recession the market is now beginning to shrink, and there is considerable turnover of nursery places. The built-in instability of the for-profit market serves to highlight its problematic nature and difficulties of relying on it as a vehicle for delivering government policies. This article explores the economic rationales for and the limitations of a market approach to early education and care services. It considers the direct and indirect research evidence about the functioning of such a market. It argues that any conceptualization of early childhood services in the UK now has to take account of the growth of the for-profit childcare market and the economic rationales of the marketplace.

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 Policy and Local Partnerships under Labour

This article is concerned with explaining the relatively disappointing results of the Labour governments National Childcare Strategy to date, with particular emphasis on the role of the EYDCPs (Early Years Development and Childcare Partnerships). After briefly describing and assessing childcare policy under Labour, it suggests that limited outcomes partly reflect the constraining legacy of previous policy and provision, but must also be related to the way childcare has fitted into the wider government agenda, and ‘third way’ discourse. This has affected not only policy content but the chosen means of implementation. In this context the article focuses in particular on the local EYDCPs: both their rationale and the part they have played in practice.

Policy Rationales for Early Childhood Services

This article explores the rationales and the research paradigms that countries have used to underpin policies on early childhood education and care (ECEC) services and to justify expenditure on them. Globalization — here narrowly defined as the global spread of theories and practices about early childhood mainly emanating from Euro-American sources — has led to some convergence of rationales, especially economic rationales. But within countries rationales almost always have deep historical roots, and reflect cultural ideas of motherhood, family, childhood, work and the role of the state. Perspectives may be incompatible yet sit alongside one another without the contradictions being addressed. Policy development and implementation are rarely straightforward or coherent, particularly when early education and care spans several policy areas. The article summarizes the differences between rationales and indicates in which country or groups of countries they are most likely to be found.

Working On the Impossible: Early childhood policies in Namibia

This article discusses the complexities of aid-giving using the example of early childhood policies in Namibia. It supports a critical view of aid processes and of World Bank endeavours in particular. Using an analysis of the World Bank funded education sector-wide improvement plan (ETSIP) in Namibia and three Namibian local case studies, it shows how the local circumstances of young children and their parents are ignored in order to fit in with donor preconceptions, and how senior officials come to adopt those views. It argues that universally derived policies on early childhood development are misapplied, and poverty and inequality are ignored in the search for technocratic solutions.

The business of childcare in Europe

This article is based on work undertaken for the European Commission (EC) as part of a wider project on what is termed ‘social services of general interest’. The EC is currently engaged in considering what kind of legislative and quality assurance mechanisms might be promoted for those social services, which have been opened up to competition. The EC work reported here mapped the extent to which early education and childcare (ECEC) is provided by private organizations in the member states of the European Union, and what regulatory frameworks exist for such services. This article foregrounds the situation in the UK, and England in particular. England is exceptional in Europe in the degree to which it has conceptualized and promoted childcare as a business or for-profit enterprise; and it has developed a regulatory framework with a narrow scope which excludes or limits such issues as financial regulation, access, pay and conditions of work for staff, and accountability measures.

Policy and Practice in Childcare and Nursery Education

Historically there have been three strands of policy concerning provision for young children. Nursery education has traditionally been provided for three and four-year-olds as a free, part-time, school based service provided by qualified teachers, and is regulated by education legislation. Childcare for working parents is a full-time care service for children 0–5 to cover working hours, provided by nursery nurses or unqualified care staff in a variety of private settings including domestic settings; finding and paying for this service has until now been the responsibility of parents. Childcare is subject to the 1989 Children Act and the regulation is carried out by social services departments. Welfare care for vulnerable children or children in need is provided for young children aged 0–5 referred by social workers to local authority social services or voluntary run day nurseries or family centres, and also regulated under the terms of the Children Act. All these policy strands are now under review by the government. There are a number of local authorities, voluntary organisations and private firms who have attempted to provide nurseries which combine all three strands of nursery education, childcare and welfare for vulnerable children. This article draws on case study research carried out in 1995–97 on five such innovative integrated nurseries. The findings suggest that there are very different kinds of practices with children which go on in nursery education, childcare and welfare settings, and that these practices tend to persist even when the functions of the institution are broadened. The article concludes that a more fundamental analysis of daily practice in nurseries is necessary to underpin any policy changes.