The Call for Papers for our recent special issues ‘Lessons and Legacies’ prompted the submission of several papers from countries where the story of the development of early childhood education and care had not previously been documented. This issue starts with a collection of four of these New Histories, introduced by the guest editors Helen May and Larry Prochner.
The remainder of this issue comprises three articles, from Chile, Germany and Estonia, which focus on issues that have featured strongly in the development of ECEC in many contexts – namely professional development for work with children and families from disadvantaged social backgrounds, and the role of ECEC institutions in communicating values through their social, cultural and material environments.
In the first paper Guerra and Figueroa describe a programme of professional development for nursery school teachers in Chile working with children experiencing disadvantage. In this programme, teachers are seen as ‘reflective and active inquirers involved in a spiral of research and analysis of the teaching and learning process’ understood from a socio-cultural perspective. In the first year, teachers developed understanding of their role as learning mediators through video-supported reflection. The following year, professional learning communities supported the development of action plans to improve pedagogical interactions and encourage parents to promote learning-mediated experiences at home. Analysis of participants’ reports revealed that teachers’ learning during the programme went beyond deeper understanding of pedagogy to an increasing sense of empowerment and of their potential as agents of social change, especially in the context of high vulnerability and poverty. The adoption of action research was central to this change in teachers’ sense of responsibility but also led to tensions when the impetus for social justice was at odds with a more instrumental approach to evaluation and implementation.
The second contribution comes from Germany and compares two formats of training offered to parents. Although these training courses are part of a universal package of support for parents, the authors Wilke, Hachfeld and Anders were particularly interested in the ways in which the training might support disadvantaged families. The two formats investigated, using a quasi-experimental design, were parenting-skills-focused and parent-child-interaction-focused courses. The study explored the relationship between participation in the training courses and children’s socio-emotional and language development. Findings suggested that participation in parent–child interaction-focused courses was correlated with children’s vocabulary skills, and childcare professionals observed less problem behaviour in the children whose parents had taken part in the training. The authors consider which aspects of the parenting support package might have appealed to marginalised parents and families, and suggest that the non-centre-based location and a mix of direct and indirect monetary incentives might be influential here.
The third and final article in this issue reports on values education in Estonian kindergartens. Values education is concerned with the way values are communicated and promoted to children and young people in educational contexts. This can be through explicit promotion of certain values in pedagogic exchanges, but also through the implicit embedding of values in everyday practice. Using an established values education questionnaire, Ülavere and Veisson investigated the opinions of principals, teachers, and parents about how values education happens in Estonian kindergartens. While all three groups thought that values education in kindergartens was important, parents gave lower ratings than teachers and principals to all aspects related to values education but they emphasised their own role in the values education of a childcare setting. The authors highlight the importance of discussions to identify common values and talk through any differences. In particular they suggest that discussions about values and values education should recognise the hidden values within the curriculum and deepen professional awareness about this topic.
Each of these papers addresses a different aspect of agency; engagement in action research informed by a sense of social justice has the potential to enhance the political agency of teachers in Chile; making sure that parents had a choice of training course increased participation in an early childhood intervention programme in Germany, and parents recognised their agency in values education in Estonia. Enhancing the sense of agency in parents and educators by offering choices and encouraging them to reflect on how they interact with children may help to champion approaches which support the agency of children both in the home and in early childhood settings.
This issue also represents a period of transition in the editorial team. We were delighted to welcome Arianna Lazzari to the team in February 2018 and she has started taking on editorial duties. Pamela Oberhumer generously extended her commitment to the journal to support Arianna and the rest of the team with current and upcoming special issues during this period. Pamela’s extensive experience and depth of knowledge of the world of Early Years has been of immense value to the journal since she joined at the beginning of 2007, and the editorial team has also benefitted greatly from her admirable organisational skills. We must now bid her farewell with many thanks for all her hard work, attention to detail and understanding of the field, which will be greatly missed.