Lars Dencik

Modernisation — A challenge to early childhood education: Scandinavian experiences and perspectives

SUMMARY Modernisation is conceived as three intertwining processes in society, rationalisation, secularisation and individuation, that continuously shape new context-person relationships. This article focuses on how these processes produce continuous change in childrens life-conditions in the Scandinavian welfare states. It is argued that scientific knowledge about early childhood fails because it abstracts children from the particular contexts in which they grow and develop. It is proposed that the notion of ‘childhood’ should be conceived as the particular life space of a child in a given society, a space that is defined by prevailing material, social and cultural conditions surrounding the child. As these conditions change, childhood also changes and as a consequence, the constraints and challenges that the child has to confront and accommodate become altered. In order to master their own lives, children will need to develop new and adaptive social competencies. Within this perspective, the relevance ...