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-notfor-profit providers all play a role in ECEC's 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.

Universal Parenting Programme Provision in England; Barriers to Parent Engagement in the CANparent Trial, 2012–2014

“…Recent work has begun to examine some parental responses to parenting programmes. Research has questioned the effectiveness and relevance of some parenting classes (Clarke and Churchill, ), problems associated with maintaining programme fidelity in roll‐out (West and others, ), and social equity issues relating to the marketisation of child and family provision, which CANparent can be seen to be part of (Lloyd and Penn, ). Although some of this work has highlighted issues relating to stigma and parenting provision (Clarke and Churchill, , p. 321), little empirical research has been focused specifically on identifying parental perspectives of universal parenting support.…”

What characteristics of funding, provision and regulation are associated with effective social investment in ECEC in England, France and Germany?

“…There is a mixed economy of private for-profit and notfor-profit providers and maintained nursery and primary schools (see Table 1). Although the mix varies between local authorities, there is a trend towards intensive marketisation and significant involvement of private corporate providers (Brennan et al, 2012;Lloyd and Penn, 2014;Naumann, 2011). In 2018, the majority of three-year-olds (65%) and disadvantaged two-year-olds (87%) benefiting from the 'universal entitlement' (15 hours) attended private (for-profit/not-for-profit) providers (including childminders), whilst the remainder attended maintained nursery classes/schools.…”

Leisure-time teachers’ reflections on systematic quality work: approaches and challenges

“…To ensure that young children acquire literacy, numeracy and scientific skills, standardized measurements have been adopted and used to evaluate children's performances. Other features of schoolification are actualised by Loyd and Penn (2014), who argued that the possibility for children in the United Kingdom to enter primary school at the age of fourone year earlier than usualthat was introduced in 2011 mirrors a lack of acknowledgement from the government of the value of ECEC. This development has met severe criticism because of the neglect of social, affective and physical aspects of children's learning and development that the emphasis on language and cognitive skills implies.…”