Going Beyond: Implementing “Beyond Quality” through the Investigating Quality (IQ) Project

ABSTRACT

The Investigating Quality (IQ) Project was conceptualized as a multiple systems approach to transforming early childhood education, care, and development (ECE/ECD) in British Columbia, Canada. Those systems extended from provincial government to local programs, from innovative policies to new approaches to practice. Fortunately, the tenure of the IQ project (16 years in 2021) allowed time for research and scholarly work to take place that ranged from comparative policy analysis to analyses of frontline practice authored by practitioners as well as academics, and from innovations in ECE post-secondary education to the study of environmental and equity issues within the Anthropocene. The IQ project’s publication outlets included international scholarly journals as well as provincial and national ECE association journals. Among the scholarly works were many that commenced as master’s theses and doctoral dissertations, themselves opening up new avenues of study. While key inspirations for the IQ Project (including Indigenous initiatives in Canada) predate and lie outside the initial, early 1990s foci of the U.S.-initiated ECE Reconceptualist movement (RECE), later international RECE, as well as Reggio-Emilia, Swedish/Reggio, and Aotearoa/New Zealand Te Whariki scholarly literatures, are kindred spirits for IQ articles, chapters, and books.

KEYWORDS:

• Early childhood care and development
• early childhood education
• Investigating Quality Project
• quality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Beyond Quality 2nd ed. published in 2007, and 3rd edition in 2013 as one of Routledge Educational Classics. Editions currently translated in 13 languages.

2. A full list of the 14 forums is available from the author: [email protected].