Early Childcare

The goal of this study is to investigate and describe the results of the research that shed light on the significance of the crèche and kindergarten for the child’s development. A further goal is to identify the parameters that are likely to be central to the quality of the child care.
RESULTS
Throughout recent decades, there has been a substantial increase in the number of publicly funded and regulated day care places. The long-term consequences of this were examined in a number of countries. These studies showed that these children subsequently achieved higher educational standards, participated more productively at work, earnt more, and had a better chance of starting a family, compared with children who did not get the offer of public child care. Generally, studies seem to indicate that it is the vulnerable groups who derive relatively more benefit from such universal reform. A Canadian study does show however, that the positive results clearly depend on the quality of the day care offered to the children.
The studies thus raise the question of what parameters governing day care are critical in assessing the quality of the day care institutions. This issue has been highlighted in a number of experimental studies that used activities around play to develop social, emotional, cognitive and creative skills.
The quality of the interaction between the adult and child is the most important single factor in the child care centre for the child’s intellectual development. The adults can contribute through more conversation between adults and children, as well as adding on more educational activities in the form of challenging games designed to develop social, emotional, and cognitive skills. The child learns most by taking the initiative herself whereas the adults can facilitate their areas of interest, participate in the activities, ask relevant questions and help them to develop their activities. In those studies that followed children over a longer period, it was found that the children who had gone to these high quality day care institutions, also performed better subsequently. Compared with control groups, more secured work and had professional training. They also earned more, fewer became criminals and fewer smoke marijuana as teenagers and young adults.
The long term effect of their kindergarten on children’s education is probably due not only to the increase in the children’s intelligence, curiosity and motivation, but also to their developing a more positive view of themselves and their own prospects. At the start of their school career, children who had been to kindergarten had a greater confidence in their own ability to learn something new than the children in the control group. The positive effect continued for even longer if the children went on from kindergarten to high quality schools. The efforts put into the model tests are well described and demonstrate many common features, but also very different types of input that were adapted to the parents’ daily living conditions. The tests that showed significant results had used a lot of resources to strengthen the connection between the mothers and the labour market. Parental involvement also meant that the educational games could, with the help of the kindergarten staff, be carried over into the home. Parental involvement helped to reinforce the positive effect on the child.
Opportunities for implementing high quality programmes are affected by structural parameters such as staff/child ratios, group size, staff training etc.
A change of the staffing ratio to fewer children per adult has been shown to make the adults more sensitive and attentive, while the children are offered more development-related activities and educational games. It also provides more frequent interactions between the individual child and the adult in which the child becomes involved in conversation with adults. The results of this increased attention are also seen in children’s language and cognitive development. A more favourable staff/child ratio is also associated with fewer stress symptoms in the children and fewer behavioural problems and conflicts between them.
With regard to group size, smaller groups with a favourable ratio of staff to children, in which the group is led by a kindergarten teacher with appropriate training, promote a higher inclusion of vulnerable children. The teachers act in a warmer, more encouraging way and spend less time correcting the children and telling them what to do. The children are more engaged in learning something new, which is also reflected in their school readiness assessment. With larger groups with a less favourable staffing ratio and untrained staff, the kindergarten teachers revert to more passive attitudes while monitoring many children at the same time. In this environment, there is the risk that some children will become more apathetic, or they can indulge in starting arguments, which inhibits their cognitive development. With less favourable staff ratios, there is also an increase in absenteeism among staff, suggesting that the staff/child ratio may also have implications for staff stability.
There was a clear correlation between the level of the staff’s qualifications and their interaction with the children. In a group of children in which staff had an appropriate level of training, you could see that the senior kindergarten teacher spent relatively more time with the children, the children showed better interpersonal skills and perseverance in their assignments and were seldom idle. The children in those groups where staff had an appropriate level of training, the children did better in their personal school readiness assessment.
Previous studies have focused above all on the impact of the staff’s basic training. In these studies, it was found that experience cannot replace a basic training, and that trained staff was better able to employ high quality educational methods and provide learning environments in which children can develop both socially and cognitively. Both international and Danish research also indicates that more ongoing training of staff can have a positive effect. Ongoing training can change staff behaviour so that they become more creative and supportive, better at initiating age-appropriate activities and better at turning knowledge into practice, all of which has been shown to have an effect on the child’s social, emotional and cognitive development.
BROADER PERSPECTIVES
The publicly funded nurseries and kindergartens seem to be of special benefit to the disadvantaged children.
High quality daycare can help to promote mothers’ participation in the labour market and to enhance children’s social, cognitive and emotional development. In the long term, having been a part of a high quality kindergarten can reduce crime, improve the child’s education level and improve his or her future job and earning prospects. Finally, it is not just a single generation who will benefit from this investment, but future generations as well. This is due to the positive social inheritance from one generation to the next which is associated with it. Overall, the results indicate that from a socioeconomic point of view, sending children into high quality day care institutions can be considered a wise investment. The economic gains in the Danish context cannot however, be expected to be as large as in a society with a weaker social safety net and a less well developed tradition of quality day care for the disadvantaged groups.
THE UNDERLYING BASIS
The review of the research is based on an extensive search of the literature carried out over a longer period and completed in March, 2014. The review also includes the first Danish literature summaries describing the Danish and foreign studies of kindergartens dating back to the 1930s. By means of systematic search methods and contact with other researchers, we have sought to minimise any bias in the selection of studies.
In this way, not only historical studies have been included, but also studies from other cultures and political systems. The studies have been carried out mainly in the rich OECD countries. In addition to European countries, USA and the Scandinavian countries, studies from developing countries have also been included in the review.
The studies range from 1932 to the present day. Despite the very different societies and cultures involved, it is nevertheless remarkable how similar the results are which the studies reach.