Early childhood education and early childhood development: Do the differences matter?

Abstract

In many Western nations (an area of the world identified by Connell as the Global North), the early childhood sector has positioned itself within the education discourse. This positioning brings along with it the neo-liberal agenda in relation to education-i.e. that education's key aim is the preparation of employable future employees (children as human capital). Along with this is the increasing imposition of employer-identified skills and knowledges on the curriculum in order to shape children, through education, into the 'right' attitudes, dispositions and knowledges. Thus, early childhood education has become increasingly subject to external accreditation, whereby services are evaluated based on their adherence to predetermined standards. Early childhood educators' work has increasingly required the operation of a panoptic view of children, whose every behaviour is observed, recorded and judged. The authors argue that such standards, in some contexts, act as barriers to effective service delivery and present examples of work from the Global South, demonstrating how an early childhood development focus facilitates a holistic approach to early childhood service delivery. The authors demonstrate how that development focus can be operationalised in the Global North and suggest that, as the sector proceeds towards professionalisation, it needs to consider its direction.

Resisting Neoliberalism: Professionalisation of Early Childhood Education and Care

“…While reflections identify the importance of a shared body of knowledge, what should be included in that body of knowledge is unclear, primarily due to the diversity of the workforce within each country which challenges the practicality of that knowledge being held within one generic professional being. The Nurturing Care Framework released by the World Health Organisation and the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund [69] identifies early childhood work as including children's health and wellbeing, nutrition, responsive caregiving, security and safety and early learning opportunities which are considered an equal, not more important, priority [53][54][55]70]. This framework indicates the need for cross sectoral work.…”

“…Such holistic perspectives encompass much more than a range of developmental domains (i.e., physical, social and emotional well-being) but in a number of contexts these understandings were later married with bio-ecological and/or sociocultural perspectives [52] to create a life-course, contextual focus. More recently, this expanded focus has identified key desired outcomes for children: namely health and nutrition, security and safety, responsive caregivingiii, positive early learning experiences and the provision of enabling environments for caregivers, families, and communities [53][54][55][56].…”

Development of Children's Cognitive Aspects in Recognizing Surrounding Objects by Function with a combination of Direct Instruction, Make a Match, and Talking Stick learning models

“…Early childhood education is the earliest education. The early childhood sector has positioned itself within the education discourse which one of the reasons is children as future human capital (Sims & Brettig, 2018). The years from birth to age 5 are viewed as a critical period for developing the foundations for thinking, behaving, and emotional well-being (Bakken et al, 2017).…”