Listening to young children lancaster and broadbent 2003

Background paper prepared fo

Education for All Global Monitoring

Strong foundations: early childhood ca

Changing perspectives childhood: theory, researc

Martin Woodhead 2006

This paper was commissioned by the Education for All G background information to assist in drafting the 2007 rep the team. The views and opinions expressed in this pap and should not be attributed to the EFA Global Monito The papers can be cited with the following reference: “ EFA Global Monitoring Report 2007, Strong foundation education”. For further information, please contact efare

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Martin Woodhead is Professor of Childhood Studies at the Open University, UK. Since his first book, Intervening in Disadvantage: a challenge for nursery education (NFER, 1976), he has published extensively on early childhood, including In Search of the Rainbow, (Bernard van Leer Foundation, 1996) and Cultural Worlds of Early Childhood (Routledge, 1998). He has carried out policy analysis and research review for Council of Europe, OECD, UNICEF and Save the Children, and has also worked on child labour and children’s rights, including several international studies. Recent publications include three co-edited textbooks Understanding Childhood, Childhoods in Context and Changing Childhoods, (all published by Wiley, 2003). Martin is co- editor of the journal Children & Society, a member of the editorial board for Childhood, and the International Advisory Committee of Journal of Early Childhood Research. During 2005 he was appointed Special Advisor to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Geneva, in preparation of General Comment 7: Implementing Child Rights in Early Childhood.

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CONTENTS

ABSTRACT...................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................4

I. A DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVE ..................................................................6

The formative years of life.............................................................................................6

A critical… or a sensitive period? .................................................................................8

Implications of neuroscience .........................................................................................9

A time of vulnerability…and resilience? .....................................................................11

II. A POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE ..........................................12

Compensating for disadvantage and equalising educational opportunities .................12

Evaluating long-term outcomes from early intervention .............................................12

Early childhood and human capital..............................................................................14

Human capital, ethics and politics ...............................................................................15

III. A SOCIAL AND CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE ...............................................16

‘Developmentally appropriate practices’ in context ....................................................17

Diversities in early childhood ......................................................................................18

A social and cultural process .......................................................................................20

Constructions and reconstructions of early childhood.................................................21

Quality, critical perspectives and the politics of early childhood ................................22

IV. A HUMAN RIGHTS PERSPECTIVE ..................................................................23

A new, universal paradigm ..........................................................................................23

Implementing child rights in early childhood ..............................................................27

Participatory rights in theory and practice ...................................................................29

Rights and evolving capacities.....................................................................................31

CONCLUSION............................................................................................................33

REFERENCES ............................................................................................................35

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ABSTRACT Early childhood policies and practices are shaped by competing images and discourses of the young child. This paper reviews four core perspectives that have been most influential. Put very briefly:

1. A developmental perspective emphasizes regularities in young children’s physical and psychosocial growth during early childhood, as well as their dependencies and vulnerabilities during this formative, phase of their lives;

2. A political and economic perspective is informed by developmental principles, translated into social and educational interventions, and underpinned by economic models of human capital.

3. A social and cultural perspective draws attention to respects in which early childhood is a constructed status and to the diversities of ways it is understood and practised, for, with and by young children, with implications for how goals, models and standards are defined, and by whom.

4. A human rights perspective reframes conventional approaches to theory, research policy and practice in ways that fully respect young children’s dignity, their entitlements and their capacities to contribute to their own development and to the development of services.

For each of these overarching perspectives, the paper outlines a cluster of specific theoretical, research and policy themes, summarizes major areas of controversy, and identifies a range of alternative visions for early childhood.

INTRODUCTION Enhancing the quality of young children’s lives is now a national and international priority, expressed through research and policy initiatives, programme development and advocacy. Improving early childhood education and care is a major theme. Participants at the World Conference on Education for All in Jomtien, Thailand, in 1990, pledged to provide primary education for all children and massively reduce adult illiteracy by the end of the decade. This was followed up in 2000 with the Dakar Framework for Action on Education for All. Goal 1 is “Expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children.”

Contributing to a review of the implications of Goal 1 is the immediate stimulus for this paper, but responses to Goal 1 need to be set in context of other international early childhood initiatives from UNICEF, The World Bank etc, and from numerous other regional and national agencies, and non governmental organisations and foundations. Moreover, early childhood policy developments are increasingly informed by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989, and by the work of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, with responsibility for monitoring States parties’ progress in meeting obligations agreed to under the Convention. In 2004, the UN Committee set aside a day of general discussion on early childhood, and this has been followed up by preparation of General Comment 7 on ‘Implementing Child Rights in Early Childhood’, formally adopted at the Committee’s session in September 2005 (UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2005). This paper does not focus on policy developments per se, but on underpinning knowledge and beliefs about young children’s development and their role in families, communities and society. It is especially concerned with the theories and research

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traditions that inform early childhood policy development and practices. My aim is to provide a brief survey of some major landmarks in a complex and rapidly changing field. What follows is inevitably selective. No topic is comprehensively reviewed, but I have indicated some major sources in each case. Other commentators – from a different region of the world, or with a different disciplinary background, or with a different research biography – would no doubt tell a different story, and indeed many of the books and articles referred to throughout the paper offer these alternative accounts. Philosophical and scientific interest in early childhood has a very long history, and relevant contributions span the full range of academic disciplines, (including biology, psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics) as well as major areas of applied research (notably, education, social policy, health research, law, development studies). The field can appear quite fragmented, with competing theoretical frameworks linked to profound differences in scientific and epistemological perspective, and in some cases these are closely aligned with particular policy objectives and narratives (e.g. early intervention and school outcomes; working parents and child care services etc) and approaches to curriculum and pedagogy (e.g. child-centred developmental models; community based ecological models). Another significant feature of the field is that dominant paradigms (and the range of competing paradigms) have been largely associated with recent history of economic, educational and social changes in a minority of economically rich, Western societies. Critique of these dominant paradigms has in itself been the stimulus for much innovative theoretical study (as later sections will explain). Ironically perhaps, these critiques have for the most part also originated amongst Western scholars, and in some cases continue to privilege early childhood settings and aspirations for young children only available to a tiny minority of children and families. Recent emergence of a much stronger rights based approach to policy development draws attention to global injustices in early childhood, including millions of young children daily denied their most fundamental entitlements to survival, health and well-being. This is matched by growing interest amongst scholars in the prospects for a more interdisciplinary, international Childhood Studies, along with other small steps towards achieving more globally balanced capacities for research, innovation and evaluation. Finally, the relationships between research and policy are rarely linear - of research informing policy, or vice versa. Research and policy more often appear to function as parallel and sometimes interconnected communities of interest, sometimes shaping and sometimes feeding on the other, and other times in dispute about implications of research or justifications for policy. Meanwhile, both shape and are shaped by the broader political/economic/cultural context of early childhood work, nationally and regionally, and accommodate (to greater or lesser degree) to global economic, political, demographic, technological and cultural change. From time to time, research may have a significant impact on the direction of policy, for example as when new evidence emerged during the 1980s about long term benefits of early childhood programmes. But equally, it is often policy developments that shape research priorities, not least where research is driven by political as much as educational or scholarly agendas. To put some order on disparate approaches to early childhood theory and research, this paper is organised into four broad perspectives or paradigms:

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• Developmental; • Economic and political; • Social and cultural; • Human rights.

A number of research stories, themes and clusters of theoretical work are explored in each case, with specific sets of questions and issues often linked to methodological approaches, conceptual frameworks and policy concerns. Some are relatively recent. Others can be traced to antiquity. Sections of the paper trace the emergence and major features of each paradigm. The narrative imposes a very approximate chronology on the recent history of early childhood ideas. For each major paradigm, I aim to show how theory and research has been linked to policy/practice implications, and I also offer some critical commentary. In particular, I note the perennial temptation to inflate the significance of a particular theory or evidence where it serves advocacy, which is ostensibly on behalf of young children’s rights and wellbeing, but frequently is also linked to particular visions for early childhood, specific stakeholders or set of political priorities.

I. A DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVE

The formative years of life That the early years are formative of children’s long-term prospects is one of the most ancient, enduring and influential themes shaping early childhood policy. It has specific resonance with programmes aiming at intervention in social/economic disadvantage and other adversities, and at prevention of the negative consequences for children’s fortunes. But its repercussions are expressed much more broadly, including curriculum and pedagogical assumptions about developmental appropriateness, economic theories of human capital and political theories of social justice. The core idea can be traced back at least as far as Plato (428-348BC):

‘And the first step… is always what matters most, particularly when we are dealing with the young and tender. This is the time when they are taking shape and when any impression we choose to make leaves a permanent mark’ (cited in Clarke and Clarke, 2000, p 11).

It found influential expression within John Locke’s eighteenth century claims about ‘tabula rasa’, as well as through a host of influential early childhood reformers and pedagogues throughout the centuries. The first detailed systematic observations of infant and child development were carried out within a scientific frame in the late nineteenth century, (notably by Darwin himself), and this field of research was soon firmly established and increasingly influential throughout the twentieth century. A few key theorists have dominated the textbooks, notably Piaget, Bruner and Vygotsky and their work has directly informed a range of curricula and pedagogies (see MacNaughton 2003 for an overview and more recent critical perspectives on developmental models).

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Leaving aside the specific emphases of influential current theories, developmental perspectives encompass the following (for the most part uncontroversial) themes: • Young children’s physical, mental, social and emotional functioning is

distinctively different from that of older children and adults, comprising distinctive phases, stages and milestones of development.

• Numerous progressive transformations occur in children’s physical, mental, cognitive and social-emotional competencies, from earliest infancy to the beginnings of schooling in modern societies. These transformations mark the acquisition of skills and capacities, ways of relating, communicating, learning and playing etc;

• Early childhood is the period of life when humans are most dependent on secure, responsive relationships with others (adults, siblings and peers), not just to ensure their survival, but also their emotional security, social integration and cognitive and cultural competencies.

• Young children’s development is especially sensitive to negative impacts from early malnutrition, deprivation of care and responsive parenting, or disturbed and distorted treatment;

• Where children’s basic needs are not met, or if they are maltreated or abused, the repercussions are often felt throughout childhood and into the adult years.

• While early development can be summarised in terms of universal general principles, the contexts for, experiences of, and pathways through development are very variable, notably linked to young children’s individual capacities and special needs, their gender, ethnicity, and economic, social and cultural circumstances;

Insights from child development research have long been a major source of theories, evidence and controversy surrounding care and education of young children. Rapid industrialization and urbanisation, and the establishment of universal schooling in Western societies created a widespread demand for knowledge about children’s needs and capacities at particular ages, not least to inform training for new teachers and other child professionals, as well as manuals of advice to parents (Walkerdine, 1984; Rose 1985; Woodhead, 2003). Making sure the particular needs of the youngest children were recognised was already a focus of concern, with advocates for early education (nursery schools, kindergarten etc) drawing on insights from developmental research in their advocacy, notably for informal, holistic, child-centred, play based settings. One of the most enduring policy debates was already well-established during the first decades of the twentieth century, with advocates for young children in Britain arguing for a ‘nursery education’ appropriate to young children’s needs and development, and in particular rejecting the formal teaching methods and emphasis on numeracy and literacy skills commonplace in primary schools of the period. Debates surrounding recognition of the early years as a distinctive phase in children’s development have as much resonance now as a century ago and are most often expressed as about promoting ‘developmentally appropriate’ policies and practices (Bredekamp and Copple (1997), and about avoiding the developmental risks for the ‘hurried child’ (Elkind, 1981). Another equally longstanding policy debate focussed on young children’s emotional needs, the significance of early attachment relationships and the appropriateness of care outside the family, in day care centres or with childminders etc. Much of the initial research came from studies of children whose lives had been disrupted by

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World War II, as well as children in residential institutions, and in hospitals. It was especially linked with the concept of ‘maternal deprivation’ and subsequent work on early emotional attachments (Bowlby 1953; Ainsworth et al 1978; reviewed by Schaffer 1996). Concern about the well-being of young children in institutional settings played into much wider debates about women’s role in family and economy (e.g. Singer, 1992; 1998). It is unclear how far this research influenced policies on early care and how far it merely reinforced competing ideologies, especially since anxieties about risks to the well-being of young children were expressed much more strongly in some European societies (e.g. UK) than they were in others (e.g. Sweden) where day care services have more often been viewed as a positive experience for children and for parents. While the debate is no longer as polarized as in the past, and is beginning to take greater account of diversity in child care arrangements globally, issues about appropriateness and quality of care continue to be a major focus for research and policy, especially where very young infants are concerned (e.g. Belsky 2001; 2003). The somewhat artificial academic divisions in theory, research and policy between children’s cognitive/educational and their social/emotional development became a significant issue in its own right during the latter decades of the twentieth century, with concerns about fragmented policies and services in many western societies, and significant experiments in co-ordinated services. Again, Scandinavian countries offered an alternative model, with integrated care/education arrangements longer established, and most recently expressed through the emergence of the ‘social pedagogue’ as a model of multi-disciplinary professional work (Moss and Petrie, 2002).

A critical… or a sensitive period? Research highlighting the formative significance of early childhood has fuelled policy work for at least a century. It crystallized in debates about how far the early years are ‘sensitive phase’ versus a ‘critical period’. Put simply, how far do experiences in early childhood have a determining and irreversible impact on children’s futures (reviewed by Schaffer, 2000; Clarke and Clarke, 2000)? If they do, the individual and social consequences of inadequate services and protection are dire; and the implications for early childhood policies are compelling. This debate has been expressed scientifically though studies of the impacts of extreme deprivation, abuse, and other adversities, along with evaluations of the impact of interventions at various age points, in order to establish the ‘reversibility’ - or otherwise - of negative impacts from initial adverse experiences. This review focuses mainly on psycho-social dimensions of early adversity but it is important to emphasize that the impact of early health risks, disease and malnutrition is also well established, affecting physical growth, cognitive functioning and school achievement (Pollitt, 1990). Comprehensive early childhood programmes are a major vehicle for combating health risks and reducing long term outcomes (Pollitt et al 1993), ensuring young children are provided with adequate nutrition and their parents are provided appropriate information and support. In many poverty contexts, physical and psycho-social risks co-occur and interact in long term outcomes. The major evidence on these psychosocial risks comes from young children deprived of adequate parental care and reared in a low quality institutional setting. Decades of research provide indisputable evidence of severe developmental delay and emotional

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disturbance. However, follow up studies of children moved into a positive environment with adoptive families paint a more optimistic picture, consistently demonstrating improvements in social, emotional and intellectual functioning. For example, one study of institutionalised children adopted between two and seven years old found remarkable evidence for emotional attachments established with adoptive parents, at a much older age than would have been thought possible according to dominant theories at that time. There were also improvements in cognitive and social functioning, but even so some social adjustment problems remained, notably a tendency for formerly institutionalised children to be over-affectionate and even indiscriminate in their relationships with adults, as well as more often experiencing peer relationship difficulties than a non-adopted control group (Tizard, 1977). More recent studies of children whose earliest years were spent in orphanages in Romania during the 1980s, but who were subsequently adopted within British families provides further insight into the ‘partial truth’ of the critical period hypothesis. This study was able to compare outcomes for children adopted before the age of two with outcomes of later adopted children, demonstrating that all made marked improvements, but earlier intervention (i.e. before the age of 2) produced much more rapid and complete catch-up (Rutter et al 1998). The headline message for policy might be characterised as ‘early is best’ but it is (almost) ‘never too late’.

Implications of neuroscience Scientific arguments for recognising the early years as a sensitive period (developmental ‘prime-time’) have received tantalizing endorsement in recent decades through advances in neuroscience (Shonkoff and Phillips 2000). For example, a widely cited Newsweek article made the dramatic claim that:

“A newborn's brain is composed of trillions of neurons…The experiences of childhood determine which neurons are used, that wire the circuits of the brain. Those neurons that are not used may die” (Begley 1996, cited at http://web.worldbank.org)

The basic facts are compelling. The human brain grows most rapidly during the prenatal period and the first few years of life, reaching 50 per cent mature weight by six months and 90 percent by the age of eight. Children’s physical growth is also very rapid during the early years, but physical maturation is a much more extended process compared with the changes taking place within the nervous system (Rutter and Rutter, 1993). The earliest months of life are also the period of most rapid synapse formation – constructing the dense networks of neural connectivity on which cortical activity depends. Synaptic density increases most between birth and 1 to 2 years of age (when it is 50% higher than for more mature adults). Densities decline gradually over the period from 2 to 16 years of age. Some popular interpretations of current knowledge go well beyond the evidence, under such headlines as ‘Use it – or lose it!’. For example, it has been assumed that synaptic density is an indicator of intelligence, that maximal infant stimulation will promote optimum connectivity, and that connectivities established in the earliest years become ‘hard-wired’ for life, (critically reviewed by Bruer, 1999). These issues all require further investigation, as do hypotheses about infants’ neuropsychological requirements for responsive interpersonal attachment relationships (e.g. Schore, 2000) and claims about specific effects of abuse and trauma on the infant’s brain (Teicher, 2002).

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http://web.worldbank.org
Research into early brain development is especially significant in drawing attention to the prenatal period and the very earliest months and years of life, and emphasizing the crucial importance of adequate nutrition, responsive care and a supportive environment at a time of successive, qualitative shifts in development. While early childhood policy development tends to give priority to the pre-primary years, evidence from developmental neuroscience argues for a more comprehensive ECCE strategy, encompassing the welfare of children and families from well before birth. Having said that, there is much still uncertain about the implications of this relatively new area of research. One area of current debate centres on the question: how far does the infant’s maturing nervous system demand specific environmental input for optimal development. Much current theorising builds on evidence from human and animal research demonstrating the impact of sensory impairment on neurological development (e.g. the visual cortex ‘expects’ exposure to visual patterned stimulation for normal functioning). Similarly - the argument runs – areas of the brain concerned with social, emotional and cognitive functioning ‘expect’ specific stimulation, notably early interactive experiences normally provided through sensitive parenting, which become the foundation for secure attachment, communication and learning. But evidence from other areas of developmental research, notably studies of human resilience (see below) suggest pre-requisites for adaptive functioning are relatively non-specific. To make the point very simply, in the same way that healthy physical growth demands a balanced diet, but this can be achieved through a wide variety of foods, so human neurological development requires basic elements consistent with secure, stimulating and responsive care, but does not make precise prescriptions. It appears that optimal human development can be achieved through a wide range of family settings, child care practices and pedagogic approaches:

“Infants do not need highly specific, carefully tailored experiences for this kind of species-typical development to occur…critical periods do not really speak to how we should design preschool…choose toys, time music lessons, or establish early child care policies” (Bruer, 2004, p. 428).

It will take further research to establish the boundaries on what counts as a ‘balanced diet’ from a psychosocial point of view, which in any case must always allow for individual differences in children as well as for cultural differences in expectations for their development. Meanwhile, the attention currently being given to graphic but oversimplified accounts of early brain development makes for persuasive advocacy. But its contribution to policy development on behalf of young children and families is less clear. For example, in State of the World’s Children, 2001, UNICEF writers assert:

“… before many adults even realize what is happening, the brain cells of a new infant proliferate, synapses crackle and the patterns of a lifetime are established…Choices made and actions taken on behalf of children during this critical period affect not only how a child develops but also how a country progresses” (UNICEF, 2001, page. 14).

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