This article discusses the central issue of the transition to preschool. Individual semi-structured interviews with school professionals and parents in the Brussels region revealed that this issue is crucial for the well-being of young children, from both an educational and a social perspective. We discovered that the education system works under…

The development of standards in early childhood is associated with governments wanting to assert their influence on what young children should know and be able to do before they enter formal schooling. In South Africa the National Early Learning and Development Standards (NELDS), released in 2009, attempts to assert influence in the context of…

This article analyses how the sustainability culture has evolved in the early childhood education setting within the Spanish education system with official documents and the sustainability training received by teachers who intervene in this stage of education since these teachers' degrees have been adapted to the European Higher Education…

In this article I discuss contemporary tensions between policy, research and practice within Danish early childhood education and care. I present a critical, but open-ended, pastiche narrative with elements of modernization, evidence-based practice and (post-) positivistic research. I draw on postmodern and post-pragmatist sources to construct…

The early childhood sector in England, known as the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), has been a site of intense policy intervention over the last decade, including the introduction of a statutory assessment of children's development at age five, conducted by teachers. National results from this assessment, the EYFS Profile, show continued…

We analyse both academic literature and practice reports to discover the main causes for unequal accessibility of high quality early childhood care and education (ECEC). In order to understand and to remedy this inequality we need to consider the interplay between elements of governance, of the management of services and elements on the level of…

In 2005 the Child Care Act was introduced in the Netherlands. The explicit objective of the childcare reform has been to stimulate the operation of market forces so that childcare services are provided in an efficient way. The change towards a demand-driven financing system implies that there is no longer public provision of childcare services in…

Since 2010, the Chinese government has adopted a series of services and policies to provide early childhood education for disadvantaged children. The rapid economic development and urbanisation process since the mid-1980s have led to great changes in social structure and demographics in China. This creates new challenges for the education of…

This article seeks to answer three central questions pertaining to public-private partnership in early childhood education and care (ECEC provision) in Norway: How has public-private partnership developed during the last four decades? How is public-private partnership understood in Norwegian ECEC policy? What seem to be the future challenges in…

This article considers the value of elite interviews as a frequently overlooked methodology in investigations of policymaking in early childhood education and care (ECEC). We contextualise the discussion within a study that examines constructions of quality in Australian ECEC policymaking between 1972 and 2009. We conclude that, despite their…

This article begins by outlining the historical and political context of "parent partnership" within the UK. It locates the perspectives of early years' practitioners within this context, drawing on data from an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)-funded study of eighteen English early years settings, including interviews…

Child assessment practices in English and Korean preschools were compared by analysing data from interviews with educators, examples of child assessment, and official documents from each country. Child assessment in England was systematically implemented and characterised by several methodological and procedural strengths, whereas assessment in…

In England, the overwhelming majority (78%) of under fives' nursery places, remains in the private, voluntary and independent (PVI) sector where there is no requirement to employ a qualified teacher. Compared to the maintained state sector early years workforce, this dominant PVI sector tends to be staffed by a poorly qualified workforce.…

This article reports on the views of early years practitioners in England from settings that were identified as "reluctant to engage" with one of the government's key policies, the introduction of Early Years Professional Status (EYPS), to drive forwards workforce reform. Focus groups, interviews and a survey were undertaken in 2009 with 35…

In South Africa, the development of the 2001 White Paper No. 5 on Early Childhood Development (ECD) has been an instrumental policy in the development of changes to assist in preparing children for formal schooling, along with a strong focus on early childhood education. However the extent to which these are being enacted is relatively unknown.…