Making space for ‘learning’: appropriating new learning agendas in early childhood education and care

ABSTRACT

Early learning agendas are currently being introduced in early childhood education and care (ECEC) by transnational organizations such as the EU and OECD. In this paper, we focus on Denmark, where such agendas interweave with a pedagogical tradition emphasizing a child-centered approach and children’s play. Based on ethnographic research, we explore learning agendas as part of practice in ECEC centers, pursuing the situated meanings of a learning program as part of everyday practice in ECEC centers from three different perspectives: of children, professionals and managers. Informed by psychological and anthropological traditions, this design employs an agentic stance and conceptualizes children, professionals and managers as subjects actively contributing to the co-creation, transformation and translation of policies in everyday contexts. Key findings suggest that the appropriation of national and international learning agendas in ECEC settings characterized by local traditions is an ambiguous process. On the one hand, the learning program’s structure can support existing professional practices and traditions. On the other hand, the program’s focus on learning goals and evaluation practices reduces the focus on pedagogy and supports administrative and political logics, which in turn marginalizes important knowledge about children and their engagements.

KEYWORDS:

• Early learning
• ECEC
• everyday life
• policy appropriation
• social practice
• participatory research

Notes

1. https://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/higher-education/bologna-process-and-european-higher-education-area_da (visited June 162,020).

2. https://sm.beru.dk/media/28,887/velfaerdspolitisk-analyse-personale-i-daginstitutioner-normering-og-uddannelsedocx.pdf (visited October 282,020)

3. https://www.retsinformation.dk/Forms/R0710.aspx?id=20055 (visited June 162,020).

4. https://www.apa.org/ethics/code (visited 22 November 2020), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance Guidelines (visited 14 December 2020)

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Center for Daginstitutionsforskning [xx].

Notes on contributors

Karen Ida Dannesboe

Karen Ida Dannesboe (PhD) is an associate professor in educational anthropology at the Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, Copenhagen. Her research is primarily focused on children’s everyday lives, childhood, family and professional identity. She has conducted extensive research on relations between early childhood education and care centers/schools and families, institutional norms and inclusion. Contact: [email protected], web: https://pure.au.dk/portal/en/persons/karen-ida-dannesboe, ORCID: 0000-0001-7910-5515

Allan Westerling

Allan Westerling (PhD) is an associate professor of social psychology, Department of People & Technology, Roskilde University. His fields of research are parenthood, fatherhood and everyday family life. His Head of the research group for Childhood, Your and Family Life Research, and President of the European Society of Family Relations (2016-2022). Contact: [email protected]

Pernille Juhl

Pernille Juhl (PhD) is an associate professor in the research programme Social Psychology of Everyday Life, Department of People & Technology, Roskilde University. Her research fields are social psychology and developmental psychology focussing on children’s everyday lives in and across families and ECEC centers (0-6 years). A specific research interest is marginalized children, parenthood, family life and professional practices in relation to organizing early childhood interventions. Contact: [email protected] Web: https://forskning.ruc.dk/da/persons/peju