‘The Greatest of Equalisers’: A Critical Review of International Organisations’ Views on Early Childhood Care and Education

Morabito, Christian; Vandenbroeck, Michel; Roose, Rudi

doi:10.1017/s0047279413000214

Cited by 26 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…) and the United Nations. In 2010, the Director General of UNESCO even deemed childcare ‘the greatest of equalizers’ (Morabito et al ). Given this, it is no surprise that European governments are encouraged to invest more in childcare services.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reducing Inequality in Childcare Service Use across European Countries: What (if any) Is the role of Social Spending?

Lancker

2017

Soc Policy Adm

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Childcare services are increasingly put forward as one of the most important policy levers to combat poverty and inequality. However, higher income families use childcare services to a much larger extent than lower income families. Almost all European countries increased expenditures on childcare over the past years, but has an ever-increasing public spending on childcare provision led to more equality in its use? In this article, the relationship between spending and childcare use as well as between spending and inequality in childcare use over the period 2006-12 is empirically analyzed using a random effects model drawing on country-level panel data (n = 156), derived from the EU-SILC and OECD SOCX databases. Since governments can spend money in different ways, it is discussed whether a public or a market-based strategy to subsidize childcare provision is related to more equality. The results suggest that more spending leads to higher levels of childcare use, but not directly to lower levels of inequality. For achieving equity in childcare use, government investment should lead to an expansion of childcare places across the income distribution. The findings allow the formulation of new hypotheses regarding the role of the private market in childcare services provision.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reducing Inequality in Childcare Service Use across European Countries: What (if any) Is the role of Social Spending?

Lancker

2017

Soc Policy Adm

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“…Changes in constructions of childhood are a product of adult-child relations located within the broader social, political and economic frameworks that structure societies and which give shape to the institutional arrangements -work, schools, families, churches -through which children's daily lives unfold (James & James, 2004). For example, the influence of international organisations, such as UNICEF in advocating for a unified voice to mobilise resources with the intention to improve children's living conditions, undermines debates and acknowledgments of the multiple constructions prevalent in local communities' knowledge that exceed the policies' understanding of childhood (Morabito, Vandenbroek, & Roose, 2013). In another example, Nieuwenhuys (2010), contrasts the perspectives of the 'international community' "armed with international conventions, a body of knowledge and specialists, media spectacles and an array of symbolic goods" with the "fragmentary, fleeting and contradictory ideas and practices that are part and parcel of the business of real-life people crafting a future for the next generation" (Nieuwenhuys 2010, p. 292).…”

Section: What Is the Intended Direction Of Change In Ecd Policy In Somentioning

confidence: 99%

Hierarchies of knowledge, incommensurabilities and silences in South African ECD policy: Whose knowledge counts?

Rudolph

2017

Journal of Pedagogy

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Policy for young children in South Africa is now receiving high-level government support through the ANC's renewed commitment to redress poverty and inequity and creating 'a better life for all' as promised before the 1994 election. In this article, I explore the power relations, knowledge hierarchies and discourses of childhood, family and society in National Curriculum Framework (NCF) as it relates to children's everyday contexts. I throw light on how the curriculum's discourses relate to the diverse South African settings, child rearing practices and world-views, and how they interact with normative discourses of South African policy and global early childhood frameworks. The NCF acknowledges indigenous and local knowledges and suggests that the content should be adapted to local contexts. I argue that the good intentions of these documents to address inequities are undermined by the uncritical acceptance of global taken-for-granted discourses, such as narrow notions of evidence, western child development, understanding of the child as a return of investment and referencing urban middle class community contexts and values. These global discourses make the poorest children and their families invisible, and silence other visions of childhood and good society, including the notion of 'convivial society' set out in the 1955 Freedom Charter.

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“…In this line, the political argument should be distinguished from the scientific one; too much emphasis is nowadays devoted to economic efficiency in political debates regarding ECEC policies, clearing out all possibilities of various policy orientations (Morabito et al 2013).…”

Section: Policy Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Uses and perceived benefits of children’s recreational activities: the perspectives of parents and school professionals

Amerijckx

Humblet

2015

ICEP

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‘The Greatest of Equalisers’: A Critical Review of International Organisations’ Views on Early Childhood Care and Education

Cited by 26 publications

References 46 publications

Reducing Inequality in Childcare Service Use across European Countries: What (if any) Is the role of Social Spending?

Reducing Inequality in Childcare Service Use across European Countries: What (if any) Is the role of Social Spending?

Hierarchies of knowledge, incommensurabilities and silences in South African ECD policy: Whose knowledge counts?

Uses and perceived benefits of children’s recreational activities: the perspectives of parents and school professionals

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