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…

Poverty rates in European countries have increased during recent decades and are particularly high in East European countries. Young children are especially vulnerable to poverty. Poverty in early childhood can have irreversible negative consequences for cognitive, social and emotional development, academic achievement and behavioural adjustment.…

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…

There is growing evidence among researchers and international organisations that quality of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), and ultimately the outcomes for children and families--especially disadvantaged ones--is dependent on well-educated and competent staff, and that a lack of higher pre-service training can be partly compensated by…

Public support provided for European early childhood education and care (ECEC) systems varies considerably. European ECEC systems tend to form part of a mixed economy, in which the state, private-for-profit and private-not-for-profit providers all play a role in ECEC's provision, funding and regulation, representing a market model. ECEC…

This article is based on work undertaken for the European Commission (EC) as part of a wider project on what is termed "social services of general interest". The EC is currently engaged in considering what kind of legislative and quality assurance mechanisms might be promoted for those social services, which have been opened up to…

Social constructivist theorists tend to identify qualitative educational research as discovering meaning and understanding by the researcher's active involvement in the construction of meaning. Although these approaches have been widely influenced by Vygotsky's social constructivist approach, his own theoretical framework has received…

This article will report on a project, which consulted children about their understandings of safety in relation to the people and places in their lives. Thirty-nine children aged between three and five years attending preschool and long day-care services reflected on their experiences of what is safe and unsafe in their world through dialogue,…

This article compares the division of labour between kindergarten teachers and assistants in Norwegian kindergartens and discusses the two groups' perceptions of what kind of knowledge is important in order to carry out their tasks. This study is based on a survey representing kindergartens from all over Norway, and is part of a national…

This study examined the role of kindergarten children's feelings about the perceived quality of their relationships with their teachers and their emotions towards their teachers in their competence beliefs and learning motivation (intrinsic interest, learning goals), in the impact of competence beliefs on learning motivation, and in turn in…

This article introduces an alternative qualitative research tool: metaphor and drawing, as projections of personality features, to explore underlying concepts and values, thoughts and beliefs, fears and hesitations, aspirations and ambitions of the research subjects. These two projective tools are used to explore Greek state kindergarten head…

This autoethnography reveals the limitation of the cultural compatibility theory that emphasizes the importance of increasing the number of teachers from different racial and ethnic backgrounds. A teacher's "minority" identity or even having the same cultural background as the children does not necessarily ensure full…

This cross-sectional study attempts to investigate the effects of the Aprender em Parceria (A PAR) programme, an intervention in early childhood education and parenting support in the suburbs of Great Lisbon which aims to increase the educational achievement of disadvantaged children from birth to six-years-old. A quasi-experimental design was…