Social and Historical Perspectives Flashcards
1
Q
ECCE shaped by:
A
a complex set of factors (formative influences)
- changing social, economic and demographic circumstances
- defining conditions and events at particular times in history
- enduring societal values, beliefs, myths and preoccupations
- societal role and interests of key institutions (government, business, religious institutions) and ideas about what children like and what they need
2
Q
ECCE systems in different countries
A
- ECCE systems vary from country to country
- each country’s system reflects its distinct context, history demographics priorities and culture
3
Q
ECCE systems evolve because..
A
- social needs change
- labor markets shift
- political regimes change
- citizens of the country can become more aware of the consequences of priorities, choices and values and introduce that awareness into public debate
- advocates emerge with specific policy agendas
- knowledge base for policy and practice changes
4
Q
America and the ECCE
A
- Americans exhibit qualities that keep the ECCE unsettled such as,
- willingness to experiment
- ambivalence about core beliefs
- recognize a gap between their ideals and their actual behavior
- never done trying to figure out how to define and address children’s needs and families’ needs
5
Q
Core American Ideas and Beliefs
A
- shape ECCE in the US
- belief that individual interests and rights take precedence over common interests
- distrust of government
- marketplace is best guide and framework for common life as people
- those with economic power have a right to a greater voice
- view of families as a counter-weight to a harsh and unforgiving marketplace
- belief in family privacy rights
- childrearing is a private right and responsibility
- at the same time: belief that there exists a common understanding of what good childrearing consists of
- reification of motherhood and ambivalence towards mothers of young children who choose to work
- family self-sufficiency- families largely responsible for their own well-being
- when families cannot meet their own needs: responsibility first falls to local and private structures and only later to government
- tendency to separate children’s fate from those of their parents (distinction between child and family welfare)
- belief that circumstances of a person’s birth should not determine his or her eventual position in society or success in life
- belief that a certain degree of inequity is natural
- education is the great leveler of inequality - most powerful vehicle for social and economic mobility
- minimize differences
- social problem solving involves experimenting and finding out what works
6
Q
Social welfare system
A
- shaped by the search for a response to economic insecurity, hardship and inequality that was adequately strong yet would not force Americans to question basic assumptions and beliefs, social and economic arrangements
- shaped more by crisis than deliberate debate about needs, rights, obligations, roles
- evolved as a residual, treatment/remediation-oriented and categorical system rather than a normatively based, developmentally oriented and universal system
7
Q
Maternalist social welfare system in US
A
- focus on women’s and children’s issues, especially domestic issues (rather than on broad socioeconomic issues)
8
Q
US social welfare framework
A
- marked by a tendency to use helping services as an expression of our sense of responsibility to vulnerable children and families
- tendency to make distinctions among those who are poor- to assess, to categorize, to calculate deservingness, to help carefully rather than whole heartedly (worry about perverse effects of helping)
9
Q
child vs family welfare
A
- viewed as a separate phenomena
- viewed through a psychological lens
- function of character, quality of decision making and son on
10
Q
ECCE
A
- child focused system
- de-emphasis on attending to families’ basic needs and rights
- justify ECCE by ability to address societal challenges (economic inequality, inequality in schooling, assimilation of immigrants, righting past social wrongs, etc)
- has become our main vehicle for responding to poverty and vulnerability
11
Q
ECCE
A
in instrumental terms rather than as an inherent public good
12
Q
ECCE
A
- decentralized
- mixed system
- partly private, partly public
- regulation in many places
- religiously sponsored component which is exempt from rules and regulations of larger system
13
Q
ECCE and goals
A
- mixture of goals!
- protecting children, providing basic care, socializing children, compensating for poor and immigrant parents’ limitations as teachers, enriching
- *mix of purposes with different goals for poor children and their more economically advantaged peers– a two-tiered system
14
Q
ECCE funding and value
A
- inadequately and in my instances reluctantly funded system
- devalued ECCE workforce due to not being supported with public resources (also devaluing of difficulty of work and importance of work)
15
Q
ECCE changing over past two decades
A
- assuming a growing role and responsibility for ECCE policy, funding and program development
- dramatic increase in maternal employment rates (ecce experiences are now normative for kids)
- idea that early childhood is a critical period more accepted now
- becoming a NATIONAL, PUBLIC CONCERN not a local private concern anymore
- standardizing ECCE
