Teachers’ beliefs about future-oriented developmental and educational goals in ECEC: A comparison between nine European countries.

Teachers’ beliefs about what constitutes high quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) are acknowledged as important contributors to ECEC policy development. However, research shows that these beliefs and ideas might differ based on teachers’ cultural background (Friendly, Doherty, & Beach, 2007). From a relativist perspective, ECEC quality is sometimes described as a value-laden concept of which the meaning is dependent on context and time, which limits cross-cultural comparisons (Moss & Pence, 1994; Tobin, 2005). However, despite these contextual differences, it has also been argued that there are certain (cross-national) similarities (Rogoff, 2003). Specifically the existence of values concerning children’s development and learning have been argued to form the foundation of the concept of quality which could inform policy and practice (Balaguer, 2004; NAEYC, 1991, 2006; The United Nations Convention, 1989). This paper considers specifically the future-oriented developmental and educational goals that teachers consider to be important to stimulate in ECEC. First, we examined whether we could define developmental domains that could be validly compared across nine European countries. Second, we investigated differences in teachers’ ratings of these domains between the nine countries. The study is part of the larger European CARE project. Participants in this questionnaire study (N = 2884, Mage = 43 years, 95% female) were teachers from nine European countries (England, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Portugal). Data were collected in the spring and summer of 2015. Questions were composed and extensively discussed by researchers from the nine countries. Teachers rated the importance of these questions for two age groups: Children under three years and children between three and six years. Multi-group confirmatory factor analyses showed that the questions could be divided into seven developmental domains that could be validly compared across countries (i.e., measurement equivalence). These domains are interpersonal skills, positive attitudes towards diversity, pre-academic skills, learning related skills, physical-motor skills, emotion regulation, and openness to learning. Finding measurement equivalence illustrates that we have a common understanding about several specific developmental and educational goals across Europe. Teachers rated the specific developmental and educational domains as more important for older children than younger children. This was most strongly the case for stimulating children’s pre-academic skills, followed by learning-related skills. In addition, whereas teachers in Greece, Poland and Portugal score relatively high across both age ranges on children’s pre-academic skills, teachers in Finland, Norway, Germany and the Netherlands score relatively low. The patterns of the domains within countries are rather similar across countries. ‘Soft’ interpersonal, emotional and personal skills are deemed more important than ‘hard’ pre-academic skills for both age ranges in all countries. The difference between ´soft´ and ´hard´ skills was less strong for children between age three and six, although it was still apparent in some countries (e.g., Finland and Norway). In the presentation we will also explore relations between the teachers’ ratings and several background variables (e.g., type of ECEC, years of experience in ECEC, working with poor vs. non-poor parents, etc.), and whether these relations are comparable in the different countries.