Jan Kampmann

Societalisation of early childhood education and services

During the last decade there seems to be a worldwide increasing interest in the area of early childhood services. An interest not only focused on securing the availability of enough places for children in need of being cared for, but a qualitatively new type of interest in considering principles for the pedagogical content aimed at in the different types of daycare facilities developed over the last 20 years or so. This has been a focus in international as well as national policies, with OECD having had a crucial role in pushing this transformation forwards. On a general level we can, using a concept coming from the German sociologist Heinz Sünker, see this transformation as part of a societalisation of childhood, involving a growing tendency in individualisation, institutionalisation and standardisation (Sünker 1995, 38ff). One obvious sign of individualisation can be seen expressed through the conceptualisation of the child as a learner. Within recent years, the concept of learning has attained a completely different importance when studying smaller children, especially in the area of early childhood services. If we observe the public growth of that which could be called ‘the politics of early childhood education,’ recent years have seen significant changes. Viewed in an international context, a number of different perspectives are offered on this changing policy focus. Generally, there is no doubt that the learning perspective arises in relation to state initiated policy discussions and definitions of content and curricula in the pedagogical work in the day-care and pre-school institutions. This is a process which in recent decades has established itself especially in the Western countries, though at varying speeds and with different impact (UNICEF 2008). Of note also, is that early child education is organised within different governmental authorities in different countries, and in some cases also subordinated to different types of organisation within the individual countries (Neuman 2008). Today we can typically observe that early childhood education can be under the administration of a ministry of education, a ministry of social welfare or of a ministry of health (Neuman 2008:167ff). Generally, however, one can see a tendency within the last decades toward an increased ‘policy and public attention to the early years of education (and) many OECD countries (have) focused on expanding access, improving quality, and developing more coherent ECEC policies and programs in the 1990s’ (Neuman 2008, 164). Further there has been a general intensification in the focus on the learning dimension of early childhood education programmes, especially in connection with the establishment, in several countries, of a national curriculum or similar common guidelines for early childhood programmes. In an OECD context this has most explicitly been formulated in connection with the Starting Strong reports (OECD 2001 and 2006). These developments can also be seen as an expression of a broader tendency regarding an institutionalisation of childhood. The political interest in quantitatively establishing the necessary number of places for children of pre-school age is an important but not the only concern. Recent national policies also place more emphasis on qualitative demands and expectations regarding the content of activities carried out in the established institutions. That children, in connection with early childhood education, are now positioned as learning subjects reflects at the same time a changed understanding of and approach to

Architecture, pedagogy and children: The intersection between different action programs in school

Architecture, pedagogy and children the intersection between different action programs in school