[DRAFT]

CARE AND EDUCATION IN THE DANISH CRÈCHE.

By Associate professor, Ph.D. Stig Broström and Ph.D. fellow Ole Henrik Hansen

The Research Unit of Childhood, Learning and Curriculum Theory, Department of Curriculum Research, Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Stig Broström, Ph.D., Associate Professor,
The Research Unit of Childhood, Learning and Curriculum Theory
The Danish School of Education, Aarhus University
Department of Curriculum Research
Tuborgvej 164
2400 Copenhagen
Denmark
T +45 8888 9546
E
W dpu.dk/about/stbr

Ole Henrik Hansen, Master of Arts (Education) General Pedagogy, PhD fellow
The Research Unit of Childhood, Learning and Curriculum Theory
The Danish School of Education, Aarhus University
Department of Curriculum Research
Tuborgvej 164
2400 Copenhagen
Denmark
T +45 8888 9859
E
W dpu.dk/about/ohh

Abstract

This paper seeks to identify the relation between policy and lived life, for the small child in the Danish crèche. To accomplish this, the paper integrates demography, traditions, national curriculum and psychological, educational and recent developments in research.

It is an effort to reveal knowledge and consequences, conducting the academic legitimacy of diverse paradigms, recognizing the quality and distinctive character of the theories involved. The used methods involve systematic readings, organization and interpretation of textual material derived from legislation, relevant research articles. It is used in the exploration of meanings of political, social and cultural phenomena as experienced by the involved individuals themselves, in their natural context.

It is a presumption that the child’s development is a consequence of emotional and cognitive stimulation. To outline that, it is vital to emphasize the influence that policy causes on educational practice in the crèche, e.g. the conceptualization of education and care. The paper suggests that the empathic relation between pedagogue and child is an educational principle, which is highly appreciated by the pedagogues. But what is missing is the pedagogues’ ongoing support of the children’s striving towards mastering objects and also phenomena in the social world.

Keywords: Crèche, Policy, National curriculum, Research.

Cet article porte sur la relation entre politique et expérience vécue du tout-petit en crèche, au Danemark. Pour ce faire, il intègre démographie, traditions, curriculum national et recherche en psychologie et en éducation, y compris dans ses récents développements.

Nous nous efforçons de dégager les connaissances et leurs conséquences, en montrant la légitimité académique des divers paradigmes, ainsi que la qualité et les caractéristiques des théories impliquées. La méthode employée comprend la revue systématique de textes organisés et interprétés, qu’il s’agisse de documents officiels ou d’articles pertinents, issus de la recherche. Elle est utilisée pour explorer les significations des phénomènes culturels, sociaux et politiques dans l’expérience propre des individus qui y sont impliqués, dans leurs contextes naturels.

Nous faisons l’hypothèse que le développement de l’enfant résulte d’une stimulation cognitive et émotionnelle. Pour le montrer, il est vital de souligner l’influence de la politique sur la pratique éducative en crèche, c’est-à-dire la conception de l’éducation et des soins. L’article indique que la relation d’empathie entre le pédagogue et l’enfant constitue un principe pédagogique qui est très apprécié par les pédagogues. Mais ce qui manque est le soutien par les pédagogues de l’élan des enfants pour maîtriser les objets et les phénomènes du monde social.

Mots-clés : crèche, politique, curriculum national, recherche

Resumen

Este trabajo tratará de identificar la relación entre la política y la vida vivida para el niño pequeño en la guardería danesa. Para lograr esto el trabajo integra demografía, tradiciones, programas nacionales y psicológicos, educativos y desarrollos recientes en la investigación.

Se hace un esfuerzo para revelar conocimiento y consecuencias, realizando la legitimidad académica de los paradigmas distintos, reconociendo la calidad y el carácter distintivo de las teorías incluidas. Los métodos incluyen estudios sistemáticos, organización e interpretación de material textual derivado de legislación e artículos de investigación relevantes. Son usadas en la exploración del significado en los fenómenos políticos, sociales y culturales por experiencia propia de las personas incluidas, en su contexto natural.

Es una presunción que el desarrollo del niño es una consecuencia de estimulo emocional y cognitiva. Para resumir esto, es importante destacar la influencia de la política en la práctica educativa en la guardería, por ejemplo en la conceptualización de la educación y la atención infantil. Este trabajo sugiere que la relación empática entre pedagogo y el niño es un principio educativo que es altamente apreciada por los pedagogos. Pero lo que falta es el apoyo regular de los pedagogos a los niñospara poder dominar los objetos y también los fenómenos en el mundo social.

Demography

With a population of 5,5 million citizens, Denmark is one of the smallest countries in the European Union. Between 1950 and the latest census in 2009, the population has increased by 30% and has become more culturally diverse. From 1980 to 2010, half a million immigrants of other ethnic origins have become Danish citizens. 25% of the work-force have no education above secondary school. 64% have a professional education or training and 7% have longer academic educations. In February 2010, 4% of the population was unemployed (Statistik, 2009).

The number of employed on the labour market is almost the same for women and men. And new families are now offered 52 weeks of paid maternity-leave, to be divided between the parents. After that period, the local municipalities offer day care.

Background

The first public crèche was opened in the working class districts of Copenhagen, by the municipality of Copenhagen. And where the need seemed to be greatest, the state church opened asylums for small children. So crèches and kindergartens were only offered to the poorest families, single mothers and families where survival depended on the income of the mother (Kolstrup, 1996).

I 1919 the government passed the first law on subsidizing childcare. This legislation allocated funding, which the state could distribute to municipalities, private organizations, or private persons that started asylums as preventive care. Even though the financing was limited, it was groundbreaking that the state involved itself in what had always been a private matter: caring for children. The aim was socio-political, not educational, but it showed that parliament recognized the public responsibility for the poorest children.

Institutions that received subsidies according to the 1919 legislation were subject to public inspection, overseeing the children’s welfare and sanitation.

In 1933 the social-democratic government reformed the social legislation. Female politicians fought for both women’s right to participate in the labor market, and the right to a public childcare system. Due to their efforts, daycare centers were part of the new legislation. One of the main objectives was to ensure that the children of workingwomen would receive care and proper upbringing (Caspersen, 1985; Kolstrup, 1996).

The kindergartens were pedagogically inspired and had educational aims. The crèches were structured to attend to the health of small children. Any concentration on the child’s psychological stimulation was not seen as relevant until the child reached kindergarten age. The keywords for the crèche were Hygiene, Regularity and Calm.

Actual training as a children’s nurse was approved in 1951 as a public education. The training included one year’s work in a crèche and 54 hours of theory. When the student had been approved with satisfactory result, she earned the possibility to continue her training with a three-year state-certified education.

In the Sixties, new political winds changed the focus from care to pedagogics, and the pedagogue-led crèches were developed with attention to: Extraversion, Viability, Discussion, Courses, Union activities, Decentralization of leadership and Cooperation with social workers, psychologists, speech therapists, parents etc. (Midtgaard, 2002). And the following six objectives were formulated (Michelsen, Edsberg, & Posborg, 1992):

•To develop and promote independence and a sense of connectedness

•To develop motoric skills and the mastering of bodily functions

•To develop senses, abilities and skills

•To develop language, ideas and thinking

•To develop knowledge of nature and society

•To develop emotions, the ability to interact and agency.

Danish child and family policy have always been based on the overall principle that the family is the foundation in a child's upbringing and the living conditions of children are mainly the responsibility of their parents. As described above, public authorities have an overall responsibility for providing a good social framework and for providing the best possible conditions for families with children. General issues relating to child and family policy are handled centrally by the Ministry of Social Affairs, which lays down an overall framework and general conditions. One result of social developments over the past thirty years is that the active participation of women - particularly the mothers of young children - in the labor market has now reached almost the same level as that of men (Socialministeriet, 2000).

Many aspects of social life affect the conditions of children and families across different legislative and professional boundaries. Denmark has chosen not to unite the responsibility for the conditions of children and families in a single ministry. Instead, these conditions are covered by several different ministries, which have expertise in the various areas for which they are responsible. The Ministry of Social Affairs has prime responsibility for ECEC daycare facilities for children, the Ministry of Education is responsible for schools and the Ministry of Justice is responsible for the legal status and position of children.

In 1999 the Social Assistance Act of 1976, was replaced by the Social Services Act of 1998 (Servicestyrelsen, 2009). The provisions of the Social Services Act concerning children and the Ministry of Social Affairs guidelines concerning daycare facilities for children in accordance with the Social Services Act have been formulated on the basis of the principles laid down in the UN Convention of The Rights of the Child:

  • To take care of the children and support the individual child in the acquisition and development of social and general skills with a view to stimulating the all-round development and confidence of each individual child, thereby contributing towards a good and safe childhood.
  • To facilitate experiences and activities likely to stimulate the imagination, creativity and linguistic skills of the child, and provide each child with space and opportunities for playing and learning, for physical exercise, for socializing and for investigating the surroundings.
  • To prepare children for shared participation and responsibility, thereby helping to develop their independence and sense of commitment.
  • To encourage children’s understanding of cultural values and interaction with nature.

The Danish system is structured after a decentralized model that needs the ability of the subsystems to act independently. The government defines the overall framework applying to day-care facilities in legislation. The local authorities operate the day-care facilities and are responsible for them, and each individual local authority adopts guidelines for the operation of its own daycare facilities within the framework of legislation in force. Parent boards are meant to take part in a) the formulation of the principles which are to govern the work carried out by the daycare facilities, b) the use of budgetary frameworks and c) the appointment of staff. Within this framework and in compliance with the objectives formulated, the staff in daycare facilities may decide the content of daily activities, working methods and materials used to further the learning process and development of children. In order to increase awareness of the framework and principles applying to the activities carried out in municipal daycare facilities, local authorities often issue written information about these subjects (Socialministeriet, 2000).

Children in crèches

In 2007, 13,000 children, attended a crèche, 65,000 a municipality daycare home and 44,000 a mixed age institution. That is approximately 90% of all children aged between one and three years.

All childcare facilities are governed by the Day Care Centres Act (Retsinformation, 2007). The act gives overall rules and regulations, first of all an educational goal, a curriculum, rules for parental payment and democratic influence. A “guarantee for places” forces the municipalities to offer sufficient places.

Professional Development and Training

The educated personnel in the Danish crèche – pedagogues [pædagoger], have 3 1/2 years training, and are graduated as Bachelors. They possess 50% of the positions (2,002 in employment by October 2008). The remaining 50% (1.975 employed in Oct. 2008) are untrained personnel (Statistik, 2009).

Pedagogues can attend two-year, part-time Pedagogic Diploma Educations, as in-service training. But these courses have a fee, and substitute pedagogues in the crèche must replace those who attend. Therefore they are difficult to attend for a common pedagogue.

The private daycare pedagogues need no education, and can provide day care for up to five children, in the daycare pedagogue’s own home.

From educational guidelines to educational curriculum

Danish pedagogues, loyal to their professional beliefs, have resisted a national or centralized curriculum. However, the recent decades have brought a movement towards slightly more formalized curriculum. With the 1998 Social Services Act, more specific educational objectives were made official policy.

The central concept in this legislative language is care. Care in Denmark, is traditionally seen as a mutual emphatic relation between the pedagogue and the child, characterized by a child’s perspective, and the fact that one person focuses on another person and acts in a way which serves the other person and supports her well-being, learning and development (Broström, 2006). And in the legislation, care has a dual meaning, both as the custodial safekeeping of children while their parents are working and as the reflection and decision-making based on professional understanding of children’s needs, well-being and development. The pedagogue’s role is to start with the child’s needs and perspectives, combined with her own empathic and positive attitude toward the child, to create environments and activities where the child’s needs are met. The second usage is consistent with usage by early educators in other countries, when they refer to the education of young children as something beyond mere custodial care. Danish pedagogues reject the word “teacher” to describe their roles and “education” to describe their interaction with children.

In fact, however, Danish pedagogues actually refer to the same level of professionalism when they use the word care, as do early educators in other parts of the world when they talk about education (Broström, 2006). Thecontent of this highly professional level of care in Denmark might be considerably different from the content of education in other parts of the world. However in this paper education or pedagogy is defined “as practice, reflection, and theory on phenomena that concern teaching, upbringing, and care, plus their possible effects and impacts” (Broström, 2006, p. 395).

In another notable break from tradition, the 1998 Social Service Act introduced the terms learning and learning processes, instead of the usual term development, within the context of Danish kindergarten goals and outcomes. Until then, children “developed” in kindergarten and “learned” in school; but this document began, at least on a rhetorical level, to break down this distinction. Among other things the 1998 Social Service Act requires that the pedagoguesfacilitate experiences and activities likely to stimulate the imagination, creativity and linguistic skills of the child, and provide each child with space and opportunities for playing and learning, for physical exercise, for socializing and for investigating their surroundings.

Here the politicians do not ask for a learning process characterized by traditional sessions where for example the pedagogues arrange language learning with the use of special materials in order to support children’s social competences. On the contrary, there is an argument for the fact that children’s learning comes through all kinds of activities during the day: Children’s activities inherently involve learning processes. Therefore, daycare centers must be aware of possible learning elements that can be included in various activities. Adults must show a special awareness when a child asks to learn, to learn more, or to learn new things.

The language of the legislation does not provide strict formulations about what should be done in kindergarten. The absence of a narrow policy based on specified educational theories, goals and content allows pedagogues, parents and children to create their own kindergarten life, and to promote individual educational styles. Here, pedagogues, parents and, ideally, the children themselves, working together, are able to create the center, and with that, to pave the way for individually appropriate activity that will foster learning processes and development.

A national curriculum

The implementation of a learning dimension in the early years paved the way for a national curriculum, so in 2004 the Act on Educational Curricula was passed by parliament. The curriculum is a requirement for each single crèche to implement six dimensions of aims and content which are expressed as general themes: 1) Personal competences, 2) social competences, 3) language, 4) body and movement, 5) nature and nature phenomena, and 6) cultural forms of expression and values (Folketinget, 2004). The parents and pedagogues in the individual crèche must discuss and interpret these themes, and once a year devise their own curriculum based on their own specific needs and circumstances.

These six dimensions in the curriculum must be seen in the light of the overall aims mentioned in the act. First and foremost is the perspective of democracy and the child as an active part of society participating in democracy and contributing to the development of culture and society and through these processes obtaining an understanding of and insight into society. However, it is left to the discretion of the pedagogues themselves to interpret general phrases from the aims written in the overall political documents. Daginstitutionsloven § 7 (2007), for example, specifies the development of:

- A physical, psychological and aesthetic children’s environment to promote children’s wellbeing, health, development and learning

- Care and support for the individual child’s comprehensive development, self-esteem… and a secure childhood.

- Participation, co-responsibility and an understanding of democracy.

- Children’s independence and ability to participate in binding communities.

- The transition to school and support for basic competences and the desire to learn.

Taking a positive interpretation of the act and guidelines for children’s life in a crèche, we understand it as a democratic meeting place where they can achieve positive experiences by being together with other children and adults, and being active participants. Based on such a fundamental democratic everyday life, children will meet a practice, which consist of both caring and educational dimensions. However, descriptions of what happens in crèches express a number of problems, and first of all, because the pedagogues each year have to make up a curriculum focusing on the six dimension of goals and content – and also have to describe their use of methods – we see a tendency of narrowing down goals and objectives, which results in a mechanical practice with the teaching of basic skills - and not a vitally lived practice. At many crèches, care is still seen as the custodial safekeeping of children, and not as a mutual relation between the pedagogue and child characterized by a child’s perspective and empathy with the prospect of the child’s well-being, learning and development. In those crèches learning is considered a passive transmission of knowledge, and not as active processes through which the child may develop. However there is a sprouting tendency to see care in relation to teaching and upbringing and therefore using the phrase ‘educare’ (Broström, 2006).