‘I’m strong within myself’: gender,class and emotional capital in childcare

Emotions have received increasing attention in educational circles in the last decade. Drawing on Bourdieu, feminist scholars use emotional capital to illustrate the ways gendered inequalities can compound the disadvantages of social class. This paper examines relationships within childcare services in Australia, showing how emotional capital functions as a resource for staff. Data from interviews with childcare staff illustrate key aspects of emotional capital, such as reflexivity, resilience and embodiment. Findings show that investing in emotional capital is the key to a long-lasting commitment to childcare work, and should be valued accordingly.     

The dimensional structure of reading assessment tasks in the IEA reading literacy study 1991 and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study 2001

The study investigates measurement properties of the reading assessment tasks used in the IEA 1991 Reading Literacy (RL) study and the Progress in International Readings Study (PIRLS) 2001 study. The analysis is based on data from the Swedish PIRLS study, comprising 16,676 students in grades 3 and 4. As an extension to the basic design, not only the PIRLS tasks were administered, but each student also completed 1 of the 2 booklets from the 1991 study. Using missing-data modeling techniques, confirmatory factor analysis models were estimated and tested for the complete set of reading tasks. Results show that both sets of tasks measure comprehension of reading continuous text, but that each of them also represents unique sources of variance. In the RL instrument, reading speed is one such component, and performance on tasks from the documents domain is another. The PIRLS tasks are influenced by the requirement to produce constructed responses. It is also demonstrated that the shared context among items referring to a particular text is a source of systematic variance.     

“全面二孩”政策下托育服务资源需求规模预测——基于对2020—2035年城乡0~3岁婴幼儿人口的估算

本研究运用队列要素法,使用Leslie矩阵建立人口预测模型,基于第六次人口普查数据,以平均总和生育率1.57为基础,确定分城乡、分孩次的历年总和生育率,估算“全面二孩”政策下我国2020—2035年城乡0~3岁婴幼儿人口总量及其变化趋势,然后参照国家卫生健康委员会颁布的《托育机构设置标准(试行)》,基于已有相关研究,以24.95%的入托率预测我国托育服务资源需求规模。结果显示,尽管中方案和低方案下2020—2035年托育适龄人口呈现递减趋势,托育机构需求预计在2020年达到10万~11万所,2030年降至7万~8万所,至2035年将稳定在6万~7万所;对托育机构教师的需求量将从2020年的453万~508万人减为2025年的391万~431万人,2035年托育机构教师需求量为312万~349万人。这对托育机构的硬件设施也提出了相应的要求。由于我国长期以来托育服务严重供给不足,“全面二孩”政策下存量与增量叠加,托育资源配置压力将更加凸显,应尽快推动建立动态人口监测系统,精准把握家庭托育需求,增加有效供给;多方面调动和扩充资源,尽快补齐3岁以下婴幼儿托育服务资源短板;加强托育服务专业化、规范化建设,不断提升托育服务质量。     

‘To educate children from birth’: a genealogical analysis of some practices of subjectivation in Spanish and French scientific childcare (1898–1939)

The aim of this paper is to analyse certain techniques of subjectivation in modern child-rearing and the way in which medical discourse leads to the construction of children through those techniques. As a case study, several manuals on childcare used during the first third of the twentieth century in Spain and France have been selected. A historical-genealogical perspective is adopted, according to which childhood is not a natural or ahistorical category, but depends on cultural practices. In Western countries, these practices have been strongly influenced by expert discourses. The techniques proposed in the manuals are identified and the theoretical justification for them analysed according to the socio-cultural and historical context. It is shown in what sense the practices recommended by doctors for mothers constituted a kind of early informal education contributing to the creation of future well-educated citizens.     

Parental choice of childcare in England: Choosing in phases and the split market

This article explores how parents choose childcare settings for their pre-school children within a context of complex policy on eligibility for free provision and a developing market. Using data from interviews with 17 mainly middle-class parents in England, we explore in detail how parents go about choosing a childcare setting and the different phases of this process. This adds further nuance to the existing literature on choosing practices and the dysfunction and inequalities of a neoliberal childcare market, and also updates the discussion to include recent policy developments such as the provision of ‘30 hours free childcare’ for 3 and 4-year-olds. We conclude that parental choosing involves a series of decisions in two or three phases, which start from practical considerations, followed by quality comparison and then back to practical constraints if a decision has not been made. The options open to parents are split between not only those able to accommodate shorter ‘free’ provision and those that require longer periods of childcare to work, but also between those with children under three and above. Contrary to previous findings in this area, this split may work to the disadvantage of some middle-class families, whose children attend lower-quality settings as a result.     

Identifying high-quality centre-based childcare using quantitative data-sets: what the numbers do and don't tell us

Quantitative approaches to defining and measuring quality in early childhood education and care (ECEC) have provided a key platform for policy development. Yet their strengths and limitations as informants of high-quality ECEC have not been tested. In this study we examine two sources of quantitative data collected over a five-year period for 74 long day care centres: (1) the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised and Infant-Toddler Environment Rating Scale instruments which are well-established observational measures; and (2) Australia's nationally administered Quality Improvement and Accreditation System which involves a self-study and validation process. Correspondence over time and across measures was more consistent for the centres identified as providing lower quality ECEC. Variability in ratings of quality was more evident in lower quality centres, whereas high-quality centres showed less variability over time. High quality, however, was less consistently identified across measures. Discussion focuses on the strengths and limitations of these measures of quality, and the implications these have for policy development and future research.     

Home and preschool learning environments and their relations to the development of early numeracy skills

This study examined the influence of the quality of home and preschool learning environments on the development of early numeracy skills in Germany, drawing on a sample of 532 children in 97 preschools. Latent growth curve models were used to investigate early numeracy skills and their development from the first (average age: 3 years) to the third year (average age: 5 years) of preschool. Several child and family background factors (e.g., gender, maternal education, socioeconomic status), measures of the home learning environment (e.g., literacy- and numeracy-related activities), and measures of preschool structural and process quality (e.g., ECERS-E, ECERS-R) were tested as predictors of numeracy skills and their development. The analyses identified child and family background factors that predicted numeracy skills in the first year of preschool and their development over the three points of measurement—particularly gender, parental native language status (German/other), socioeconomic status, and mother's educational level. The quality of the home learning environment was strongly associated with numeracy skills in the first year of preschool, and this advantage was maintained at later ages. In contrast, the process quality of the preschool was not related to numeracy skills at the first measurement, but was significantly related to development over the period observed. The results underline the differential impact of the two learning environments on the development of numeracy skills. Interaction effects are explored and discussed.     

体育幼儿园教育质量评价研究

体育幼儿园是将体育教育融入幼儿园保育体系,以培养幼儿身心健康为目标的特色幼儿园。体育幼儿园教育评价对提高幼儿园的保育水平,促进幼儿身心健康全面发展,为发现和培养体育运动人才具有重要意义。以保定体育幼儿园为例,分析了幼儿园教育评价的现状和存在的问题,在此基础上提出了体育幼儿园教育评价的指标体系。     

Equal access to early childhood education in South Korea using the Geographic Information System

While the importance of early childhood education is well documented, scant attention is afforded to the access to institutions for early childhood education. Uneven distribution of institutions for early childhood education in segregated metropolitan areas can cause inequality of educational opportunity. By using the Geographic Information System tools, this paper investigates the extent to which both demand and supply in early childhood education is geographically balanced across Seoul, Korea. The analysis finds that kindergartens and daycare centres authorised by the government are evenly distributed across Seoul according to the demand. Yet, market-oriented English kindergartens are disproportionately concentrated in the southern areas of Seoul where families with higher income levels are clustered. These findings suggest that because market-driven institutions for early childhood education are not uniformly distributed corresponding to the demand, home residence according to parents’ income and occupation creates a type of educational inequality.