‘Sowing the seeds of community’: Daycare managers participating in a community approach project (original) (raw)
Related papers
International Journal of Early Childhood, 2022
In UNESCO’s recent publication Education for Sustainable Development: A Roadmap the idea of community is described as playing an important role in the organization of education for sustainable development as a means of supporting transformations towards sustainability. In the present study we examine the relationship between community and the organization of Early Childhood Education and Care for Sustainability (ECECfS). This examination is based on case studies of Swedish preschool teachers’ perspectives and practices in relation to ECECfS. Drawing on Cultural Historical Activity Theory and the concept of ontological Communities of Learners, we describe ways in which community-based characteristics of the preschools shape and are shaped by cultural tools used to pursue ECECfS. Themed-Project Work (TPW), a common means in Swedish preschools of organizing day-today activities, emerged as an important practice through which to examine questions of community within and across preschools. We describe organizational tensions concerning how pedagogical practices like TPW change from being tools to support a preschool’s activities, to being objects toward which these activities are oriented. Such changes can enable or constrain a preschool’s possibilities for building pluralistic and democratic ECEC environments. We also discuss how the said organizational tensions are rooted in how community is conceived of in preschool provision. Community is constituted not only through the relationships among members of individual preschools but also through the relationships that preschools have with other preschools in their administrative networks. We discuss contradictions that emerge in this matrix of relationships that shape how preschools enact good governance in the pursuit of ECECfS.
The Ecology of Day Care: Building a Model for an Integrated System of Care and Education
In the past few years, the care and education dimensions of day care have occupied a prominent place in scientific and political debate in Brazil and internationally. This study used an ecological perspective to examine the interconnections surrounding the dimensions of early care and childhood education and the forces that promote or restrain their integration. Information was gathered through interviews with early childhood and child care professionals on study trips to and internships in Western European countries. An ecological model of day care was traced and enlarged through an examination of child care in European, especially Scandinavian, countries. The model was further extended to the context of present-day Brazil to place Brazil in a transition context of common conflicts and challenges. The major findings of the study suggest that when primary socialization of children remains as a family task or is delegated to market forces, the development of integrated child care policies are restrained. When socialization is considered a public task, a more comprehensive approach is pursued. The integration of care and education is directly associated to the interconnectedness of early childhood services and family life. The United Kingdom, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Holland were identified as countries with an extreme tendency to consider child socialization as a private issue. Germany, Belgium, Spain, France, Greece, Italy, and Portugal compose the middle block and have strengthened the educational dimension of early childhood services. Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland express a shared model of responsibility between family and public power, with early childhood services integrated in a more comprehensive social policy. (Contains 112 references.) (KB) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document.
Promoting Community in Early Childhood Programs: A Comparison of Two Programs
Early Childhood Education Journal, 2010
Every interaction within an early childhood program either promotes community or disrupts it. Therefore, excellent early childhood programs have in place a process that pulls the energies and abilities of all the members of the school community together so that everyone-children, educators, parents, and community members-develop well. In particular, healthy interactions between educators and families create the necessary conditions for the early childhood programs: (1) to impact the lifepaths of the families; and, in turn, (2) to engage the families in the work of improving the early childhood programs. In this article, research on the Jewish Early Childhood Education Initiative (JECEI) is presented. JECEI was selected for study because JECEI early childhood programs are characterized by healthy relationships, the capacity to successfully promote children's learning and development, and the engagement of families in the work of school improvement.
Child Care Enterprise, Community Development, and Work
GEORGETOWN LAW JOURNAL, 1993
Child care enterprise can be a vehicle for community-based economic development. Beyond the critical goal of child care service, day care as an enterprise can help build capacity for job creation and entrepreneurship in the inner city and in disadvantaged communities. Stable child care institutions with quality jobs can sound a counterpoint to the feminization of poverty. The demand for child care services is substantial and growing. In single parent families and in households with two working parents, day care is essential to enable parents to work or go to school. Further, high quality early childhood programs can have a positive impact on child development. But child care teachers face the dual obstacle of a public attitude that devalues their work and a harsh economic environment that relegates child care enterprise to the margin. The economic and social reality for day care centers too often means low-wage jobs for women, with few benefits and little opportunity for advancement. In any child care enterprise, the quality of care for the children substantially depends on the caregivers and on the quality of their work life. The quality of work, in turn, requires respect for the workers and sufficient resources to provide them with decent wages, benefits, and job security. The challenge, then, for a community economic development approach is two-fold. First, particularly in low-income neighborhoods, child care centers need to forge linkages beyond their own enterprises to external institutions with available resources. Second, they need to transform those resources into a corporate culture that values the work force and balances staff interests with the needs of the children and parents. Part I of this article describes the contours of the child care industry and underlying societal values that keep it at the economic margin. Part II locates child care in a community economic development context, with attention to child care employment and theories about women and work. Part III describes selected enterprise models, all of which involve child care centers strengthened by creative linkage with other institutions and one model that empowers staff through a participatory culture and worker ownership.
Journal of education and human development, 2016
The purpose of this study is to investigate the availability, group size and infant/staff ratio of early childhood education and care centers for children under three of the age in Greece. According to the typology of Spring-Andersen, Greece belongs to the Mediterranean welfare model, where "familism" is the main component of social structure, which is based on strong family ties and an increased sense of intergenerational obligation. This model has family as the primary focus of social solidarity (provision of care and support) and productivity (economic activity within family businesses). Consequently, the involvement of the state in establishing and operating day care centers has been affected. The results of this study show that the existing structures could only cover a small amount of the actual population of this age group, assuming maximum demand. In addition, many of the existing canters had large group sizes and high infant/staff ratio.
Journal Plus Education, 2011
A Educational Model of EUROPEAN NETWORK PRESCHOOL EDUCATION Quality services for infancy and their families on the educationoriented communities and active citizenship. In our society is become essential an educational development on “child scale” (already theorized by M. Montessori in the first years of ‘900) and “families and educators in Educational Community” (already theorized by J.Dewey on the first years of ‘900) through the realization of a Educational Network, formed by children, families, educators, infancy services management, able to transmit culture and knowledge, by giving identity and common and shared values in the actual Society.
2021
In this article we focus on the perceptions of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) directors, leaders on leadership through the concept of community of practice and examine how it could be applied in the Finnish context during times of change. Data on the perceptions of 15 ECEC centre directors were collected via a focus group interview. The study employed qualitative content analysis design. The results indicate that the formal leader has an important role in leading the community. Moreover, building flexible leadership structures and supporting all community members in developing the shared pedagogical leadership are the building blocks of the future leadership as a joint enterprise.
A Reconceptualization of Childcare Based on Comparisons of Three Childcare Alternatives
1983
The present study examines three aspects of childcare: the childcare provider, the parent, and the social environment within childcare centers. Providers of family daycare, and directors of group daycare and nursery schools were surveyed regarding the services they provide. Parents whose children attended the surveyed childcare homes and centers were surveyed regarding their experiences with childcare, and the influence of childcare on the child and family. Videotapes were made in five centers, and then analyzed to determine the frequency of certain activities, and the probabilities of various social exchanges in each center. The data were analyzed to describe each childcare alternative, and to compare family daycare, publicly-funded daycare, and nursery school. Family daycare workers report the longest workdays, and the lowest adult to child ratio. Publicly-funded as opposed to private group care centers are open more hours, and care for more children for primarily childcare as opp...
The Ecology of Collaborative Child Rearing: A Systems Approach to Child Care on the Kibbutz
Ethos, 2003
Collective child rearing on the Israeli kibbutz serves as a model for articulating changes in patterns of familial and nonfamilial child rearing associated with cultural change. Kibbutz children, like other children with working parents, are cared for by multiple caregivers in multiple settings. Historically, kibbutz child care has been communally run in keeping with the collective beliefs and organization of the setting. As collective practices have been relaxed, the contemporary kibbutz children's house has been likened to other day care arrangements. In this article, we examine the process of change in collective childcare arrangements on kibbutz as a dynamic system involving patterns of reciprocal relations among parts of a collaborativechild-care system. Influences of the views of developmental experts and economic forces impact reciprocal relations among the physical and social setting, changing practices, and beliefs of kibbutz members. A system dynamics approach turns our focus to feedback loops among parts of the eco-cultural childcare niche rather than developmental outcomes resultingfrom static features of kibbutz and other childcare arrangements. Contrasting different feedback systems points to cultural conditions under which some stability in demand for collective child care may be maintained, as compared with conditions that might lead to the demise of collective child care. The difference between day care systems. .. and the kibbutz (communal settlements) system is, in most cases in their connections with the surrounding community. Generally, day care is a system for substitute care and not a part of interlocking community systems.. .. The evaluation qfany child-rearing situation has to be done in the context qf the total community.
Parents’ views on preschool care and education in local community
2009
In this text authors are analyzing preschool care and education in local community. They are focusing on the problem of information transfer between the kindergarten, parents and local community, as well as the model of relationship participation. Cooperation between parents, kindergarten and local community is an important element in the preschool institution quality, because it changes inner relationships, climate and culture. Expectations about cooperation in some authors’ views (Resman 1992, Schleicher 1989, Coleman 1998, Ryan 1995) depend on tradition, objectives, social context, legal framework and situational demands. The research data show that Slovene kindergartens have more consumer-like relationships with parents instead of »partnership«. Kindergartens are clear about important information concerning their pedagogical work and organization, but they don’t include parents in making decisions about the developing and executing of programs. 92, 3% of parents think that the information they receive is clear, understandable but only 89, 6% think they are frequent. More then half of the interviewed parents frequently or always participate in kindergarten life and work, but only about 43 % believe that they can co-influence the development or realization of the programme. Parents also think that the local community is not giving them enough information about preschool care problems, because only 10.2% are included in solving current preschool care problems in their municipality. Key words: Preschool education, cooperation, local community, parents, curricula.