Debates on Early Childhood Policies and Practices

Global snapshots of pedagogical thinking and encounters

Theodora Papatheodorou

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136587078
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Globally, Early Years policies and documents have set out aspirational outcomes and benefits for children, their families and the wider society. These policies have emphasised the place of early childhood provision within the wider global agenda, by tackling inequality and disadvantage early on in children's lives. However, these strategies have also raised further debates regarding the way they have informed and shaped curricula frameworks and pedagogical approaches.

The international team of contributors to this book argue that if these issues are not explicitly acknowledged, understood, critiqued and negotiated, emerging policies and documents may potentially lead to disadvantaging, marginalising and even pathologising certain childhoods.

Divided into two parts, the volume demonstrates the dialectic nature of both policy and practice. The chapters in this wide-ranging text:

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• explore and articulate the philosophical premises and values that underpin current early childhood policy, curricula and pedagogies

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• explicitly acknowledge and articulate some of potential conflicts and challenges they present

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• provide examples of divergent and creative pedagogical thinking

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• highlight opportunities for enabling pedagogical cultures and encounters.

Debates on Early Childhood Policies and Practices is aimed at a wide readership including academics and researchers in early years education, policy makers, undergraduate and postgraduate students, practitioners and early childhood professionals.

PART I
Early childhood policies: implications for provision and practice

1
BALANCING TRADITIONS AND TRANSITIONS

Early childhood policy initiatives and issues in Germany

Pamela Oberhuemer

OVERVIEW

This chapter analyses current early childhood policy initiatives in the German context and their transformational implications for the field. Over the past decade, three issues in particular have received marked policy attention. The first was a decision by all 16 federal states (Länder) to introduce curricular frameworks for the early childhood sector. A second round of policy initiatives focused on enhancing language and literacy skills, and particularly on the support of children with German as a second language. The third major area of policy attention has been directed towards provision for children from birth to three. Following a focus on these three issues, the chapter concludes by asking whether there have been detectable shifts in guiding philosophies and values in recent years and whether tensions are visible in the balancing of traditions with current transitions from policy goals to practical interpretations.

Key words: Germany; early childhood; policy initiatives; early education reforms.

Introduction: looking to the past to understand the present

As in most countries across Europe, the first centres for young children emerged during the onset of industrialisation as purely custodial establishments (Oberhuemer et al. 2010). Friedrich Froebel’s (1782–1852) concept of early childhood institutions challenged the predominantly utilitarian approaches of the time. In 1840 he founded the first ‘kindergarten’ which combined a philosophy of social pedagogy, care and early education. In 1848, in the context of a democracy movement that culminated in a revolutionary parliament, Froebel proposed the integration of the kindergarten into the general education system: ‘As education for all, and from an early age, it was seen as the prerequisite for the democratisation of society’ (Urban 2010: 3). However, this radical idea was not politically viable at the time and this has been the case up to the present day (2012). In post-war West Germany and in today’s post-1990 Federal Republic of Germany, all institutional forms of child care and education prior to compulsory schooling have been positioned within the child and youth welfare system.

Following the post-war division of Germany, the two separate nations developed distinctly differing systems of early education and care. Whereas in the eastern socialist German Democratic Republic the labour force participation of women was a declared political goal underpinned by the provision of full-day and publicly funded kindergartens (within the education sector) and day nurseries (within the health sector), in the western Federal Republic of Germany, women were encouraged to care for their young children in the home and provision levels were very low. The 1952 Youth Welfare Act in West Germany re-endorsed the so-called subsidiarity principle anchored in the first Youth Welfare Act of 1922. According to this principle, public authorities are only obliged to provide social services if nongovernmental agencies are not in a position to do so. This principle was again re-authorised in the 1990 Social Code, Book VIII – Child and Youth Services (Child and Youth Services Act) which came into force in October 1990 in the five eastern Länder (federal states), and in January 1991 in the 11 western Länder of the newly unified Federal Republic of Germany. Federalism and subsidiarity are therefore key political principles underpinning the organisation, funding and regulation of early childhood services in Germany.

Concept of early education and care in the Child and Youth Services Act 1990/1991

In the specific section on day care institutions and family day care in the 1990/1991 Child and Youth Services Act (para. 22), it is stated that these services should support the child in developing independence and a sense of community; support and extend the upbringing and education in the family; and help parents to combine employment and childrearing. The overall approach is described as a combination of upbringing (Erziehung), education (Bildung) and care (Betreuung). Provision – both from a pedagogical and an organisational point of view – is to be adapted to the ‘needs of children and their families’. Parents are to be included in decision-making processes about key aspects of the childcare service. Wherever possible, children with disabilities are to be included in mainstream group provision. Programmatic educational aims are formulated only at a very general level.

The 16 regional governments are responsible for developing childcare laws in alignment with the main features of federal legislation. These are prepared by the ministry with overall responsibility for youth affairs (Oberste Landesjugendbehörde). At the local level, the municipalities are obliged to guarantee service provision and secure funding for kindergartens (for 3- to 6-year-olds), day nurseries (for 0- to 3-year-olds) and school-age childcare (for 6- to 14-year-olds) and other age-combined forms of provision. However, public administration does not directly provide the majority of these services (at least in the western Länder) but co-operates with a variety of non-profit service agencies. Here, church and voluntary organisations play a pivotal role. Around two-thirds of centre-based early education/care provision across the country is run by these so-called ‘free providers’ (Freie Träger der Jugendhilfe).

The traditional dominance of the non-governmental sector has not only been maintained but has been increasing. A recent independent survey (Schreyer 2009) of the providers of centre-based services for children in 13 Länder registered an increase of almost 42 per cent over the last seven years. According to this study, the decrease in the numbers of public, municipality-run centres is particularly marked in the eastern part of the country; whereas in the western Länder, the absolute number of church-affiliated centres has decreased. However, the proportion of non-church free providers has increased significantly in both parts of the country.

In other words, responsibility is shared between the federal government, the 16 regional governments and local government bodies in partnership with a wide range of non-profit agencies.

The PISA challenge and school readiness issues

During the late 1990s, debates began to surface regarding the efficacy of traditional early childhood programmes. On a general level, these arguments related to international discourses around the concept of life-long learning, the publication of neuro-scientific research on brain development during the first years of life, and also a growing acknowledgment of a rights-based approach to early education as inscribed in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. On a more specific level, a number of national reports on education also emphasised the need for reform in the early childhood sector; moreover, empirical research in three of the 16 Länder had revealed considerable differences in quality between kindergartens across the country (Tietze 1998). These varying strands of debate all contributed towards a heightened public and policy interest in the education of young children.

However, it was the so-called ‘PISA shock’ which generated the necessary political pressure and led to a number of significant policy initiatives. The findings of the first round of the comparative OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) of 15-year-olds and their school achievements across 32 countries (OECD 2001) were given extensive media coverage. Not only was Germany’s overall ranking level unexpectedly low, but the study also illustrated how the education system was failing to compensate for differences in social background and that migrant children in particular were disproportionately represented among the low achievers. These findings further fuelled controversial debates across the country on the goals, content, pedagogy and structural organisation of the public education system. The early childhood sector, although not part of the official education system, was included in this debate. In this sense, the policy initiatives that followed were part of a school readiness discourse and led in the first instance to the introduction of first-time curricular frameworks for work in early childhood centres.

A curriculum for the early childhood sector? Not one, but many

Up to 2002, formal curriculum guidelines for the early childhood field were neither seriously debated nor high on the policy agenda in Germany. Apart from the very general educational aims set down in both the federal-level Child and Youth Services Act 1990/1991 and in the complementary Länder legislation, any kind of specification regarding the pedagogical programme in post-unification Germany was low key. A major reason for this is that the voluntary and mainly church-affiliated agencies which provide the majority of services have had considerable independence in the field and traditionally have resisted regulatory initiatives.

However, as a consequence of the PISA findings, the overall political situation was such that between 2003 and 2008, all 16 regional governments decided to regulate the field more closely and to issue first-time curricular frameworks, a move which was generally supported by the major service provider organisations. Bavaria took the initiative in these developments (Fthenakis 2003), followed closely by the city-state of Berlin.

Moreover, in 2004, another historically unique step was taken. The 16 Ministers for Youth Affairs and the 16 Ministers of Education agreed to adopt a Common Framework for Early Education. Although this Common Framework is not binding, it reflects many of the general features of the varying curricular documents. Basic principles include a holistic approach towards learning; involving children in decision-making processes; intercultural pedagogy; gender-sensitive practices; specific support for at-risk children and children with (potential) disabilities; support for gifted children. ‘Through their informal learning environments, early childhood centres offer a supportive framework for developing experiential learning and for promoting a probing, enquiring, questioning and challenging disposition towards learning’ (A Common Framework for Early Education 2004: 18–19).

The areas of learning highlighted in the Common Framework are similar to those in many other curricula across Europe: (1) language, literacy and communication; (2) personal and social development, ethics and religion; (3) mathematics, science and (information) technology; (4) arts education/media; (5) physical development, movement, health; (6) nature and culture. Improving the transition from early childhood education to school is particularly emphasised. As in many countries, kindergartens and schools have developed in very different ways in the past in terms of educational philosophy, organisational structures and staffing requirements. One of the significant challenges for the future is therefore to strengthen co-operative strategies at all levels: the steering level; the local and institutional level; and the curricular level (Oberhuemer et al. 2010).

Most of the curricular documents are based on a view of children as agents of their own learning in a co-constructive process with adults and other children, and all are committed to the holistic approach of encompassing education, care and upbringing. The main differences are in the length, and whether or not the curriculum is mandatory. Whereas most are considered to be ‘guidelines’, in Bavaria, Berlin, Saxony and Thüringen, early childhood centres are obliged by law to include the main principles, aims and areas of learning in their own centre-specific programmes (which are individually geared to local needs). The city-state of Berlin has taken the most far-reaching steps in terms of curriculum assessment. The implementation of the Berlin Early Childhood Curriculum (Pro...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Notes on contributors
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction: early childhood policies and practices
• PART I Early childhood policies: implications for provision and practice
• PART II Early childhood practice: enabling pedagogical cultures and encounters
• Conclusion
• Author index
• Subject index