The brainification of early childhood education and other challenges to academic rigour

Recently, Wilson et al. (2012) have published a much-noticed article in BMC Medicine, reporting a meta-study on the effects of a parenting support programme called ‘Triple P’. They found that out of 33 studies that matched the criteria of rigorous research, no less than 32 studies were authored by Triple P affiliated personnel. It is extremely worrying that only two of these contained a conflict of interest statement. In order to avoid such problems, the European Early Childhood Education Research Journal will from now on, ask all authors to make a statement on possible conflict of interests, for the sake of academic honesty. In the subsequent discussion, the overreliance on positive but substantially underpowered (due to small samples) trials was also criticised (Coyne and Kwakkenbos 2013). In October 2013, The Economist published a themed issue explaining why the scientific world is far less self-correcting than it usually claims. Scholars worldwide operate under growing publication pressures, urging them to publish partial studies in a rat race named ‘publish-or-perish’. In addition, journals are generally not much interested in publishing verification studies but prefer ‘new’ stuff, labelled as ‘original contributions’ and ‘groundbreaking’. The well known ‘file drawer’ problem (whereby a bias to meta-analysis results from statistical studies with low statistical power tending to remain unpublished and inaccessible to the analyst) or publication bias adds to the problem. Journals are more inclined to publish studies that claim to have found spectacular correlations than studies with null results. As a result, scientists are less interested in verifying their colleagues' work, than in finding new correlations. There are increasing numbers of scholars criticising the frenetic search for ‘asterisks’ (Bettis 2012) or ‘voodoo correlations’ (Vul et al. 2009).

This is a particular issue in neuroscience. Indeed, neuroscience is an extremely rapidly evolving branch: the number of articles published in international peer-reviewed journals in this sector increased by some 800% over the last decade (Blakemore et al. 2011). In short, an increasing number of neuroscientists criticise methodologies that are prevalent in their field (e.g. Button et al. 2013; Ioannidis 2012). In addition, neuroscientists criticise how their science is misinterpreted by some developmental psychologists pleading for the existence of critical periods, while neuroscientists themselves find increasing evidence for the flexibility and malleability of the brain, also in later stages of development:

Educators are, in a sense, like gardeners. Of course, gardeners cannot grow roses without the right soil and roots in the first place, but a good gardener can do wonders with what is already there. Just like gardening, there are many different ideas of what constitutes the most admirable and there are distinct cultural differences and fashions over time. Nevertheless, individual gardens involve making the best of what is there and it is possible to make astonishing new and influential designs (Blakemore and Frith 2005, 459).

Paradoxically, despite this growing scepticism, the influence of neuroscience is rapidly increasing in early childhood education and researchers in this vein state that the neuroscience could be the main foundation of early childhood policies (National Scientific Council on the Developing Child 2007; Shonkoff 2011; Shonkoff and Phillips 2000). The ultimate argument is that intervening at the earliest age (preferably before ‘brain architecture’ is shaped) is cheaper and will generate a significant return on investment later in life, by saving on welfare costs, delinquency, unemployment benefits, etc. (e.g. Barnett 2011). As a result, serious scholarly journals plead to skip scientific nuances because ‘research is less likely to be used when there is no scholarly consensus’ (Gormley 2011, 979).

Of course, it is tempting to have your research used by policymakers and therefore to give in on rigour. Of course it is tempting to use the economic brain argument, when you work in a field that for so many years has been disregarded by policy as a ‘pre-pedagogic age’, as the Belgian authorities claimed in the 1970s. Yet, we need to be aware that each time we use the economic argument to advocate for investments in early childhood education, we implicitly or explicitly also argue that the economic argument is the one that matters most. And consequently, by doing so, we reaffirm that the meaning of early childhood education is not to be found in early childhood, but in the integration in the future labour force of a meritocratic society. The danger is then that the inherently social nature of ECEC, as well as the care in ‘care and education’ are pushed to the background.

In my opinion, one of the strengths of this EECER journal is its cherishing of multi-paradigmatic perspectives and disagreements. In this issue some articles indeed use the perspective of the importance of early years for later life and focus on the importance of the home situation (Becker), the prevention of risks (S¸tefan and Miclea), the achievement of pre-academic skills (e.g. Elia and Evangelou), or critically analyse how governments translate such concerns on early learning in curricula (Ebrahim or Jensen). Yet, in the same issue, others stress environmental factors when assessing interventions (e.g. Castro, Pinto and Simeonsson). While the children's perspectives are crucial to the scope of this journal (e.g. Arthur, Powell, and Lin), this is also complemented with the professionals' perspective (e.g. Galvao and Brasil) and the perspective of parents (e.g. Grammatikopoulos, Gregoriadis, Tsigilis, and Zachopoulou). These broad perspectives also allow for the confrontation of various methodological stances, including grounded theory (see Arthur, Powell, and Lin in this issue) and other qualitative approaches (Galvao). Yet, we are well aware that it needs growing attention and effort to safeguard the excellent quality of contributions in a scholarly journal such as the European Early Childhood Education Research Journal. As one of several attempts to do so, we will include statements on conflict of interests for all future manuscripts.