Towards a New Global and Responsive Approach to Early Childhood Education and Care Services

This book is dedicated to all children and families in Europe, because every child deserves the best possible education and care, which should be guaranteed for all (EU Child Guarantee).

Contents

1. List of Figures

2. List of Tables

3. Foreword: Rethinking and reforming early childhood services Peter Moss

4. Acknowledgements

5. List of Abbreviations

6. Introduction Alejandro Paniagua, Laura Farré and Berta Vila

7. 1 Towards a new global and responsive ECEC services approach: Rethinking policies, institutions and pedagogical practices Jordi Collet-Sabé, Verónica Jimenez, Mila Naranjo and Glòria Olmos

8. 2 Towards a tool for the constant evaluation and improvement of early childhood education and care services Francesca Davoli, Mila Naranjo and Verónica Jiménez

9. 3 ECEC services as nodes in a community and family network: The Barcelona case Alicia Aguilera, Bet Bàrbara, Loida Sala and Elisa Stinus

10. 4 ECEC services for climate justice in Barcelona Alicia Aguilera, Emma Cortés and Judit Cucala

11. 5 Continuity in the integrated 0–6 system: Right, tension and practice Mattia Lambert, Franca Locati and Elisabetta Dodi

12. 6 Implementing the European Child Guarantee in a metropolitan social context Mattia Lamberti, Franca Locati and Elisabetta Dodi

13. 7 Multicultural and multilingual approach in ECEC services: Trajectory and current debates in Tampere Tanja Moisala, Ulla Niskanen, Pia Kuisma

14. 8 Quality, evaluation and professionalism in ECEC services: Debates and challenges in Tampere Tanja Moisala, Ulla Niskanen, Pia Kuisma

15. Bibliography

16. Notes on Contributors

Figures

1. Figure 0.1 Legal entitlement versus compulsory (2025) in Key data on early childhood education and care in Europe – 2025. European Commission / EACEA / Eurydice.

2. Figure 0.2 Participation rates in ECEC of children under age 3 (2025) in Key data on early childhood education and care in Europe – 2025. European Commission / EACEA / Eurydice.

3. Figure 0.3 ECEC free of charge and guaranteed places (2025) in Key data on early childhood education and care in Europe – 2025. European Commission / EACEA / Eurydice.

4. Figure 0.4 Public expenditure across the OECD (2024). Author’s elaboration based on Education at a Glance 2024: OECD Indicators. OECD.

5. Figure 0.5 Age from which a place in ECEC is guaranteed (2025) in Key data on early childhood education and care in Europe – 2025. European Commission / EACEA / Eurydice.

6. Figure 0.6 The ECEC gap (2025) in Key data on early childhood education and care in Europe – 2025. European Commission / EACEA / Eurydice.

7. Figure 1.1 EDUFIRST ECEC services approach. Author’s elaboration with AI support.

8. Figure 3.1 Evolution of the number of children enrolled by type of centre (2024) in Analysis of early childhood education and care in Barcelona and growth alternatives. IMEB, Jaume Blasco.

9. Figure 3.2 Pre-school coverage by age group and type of centre (2022–23 academic year, with respect to the census as of 1/1/2022) (2024) in Analysis of early childhood education and care in Barcelona and growth alternatives. IMEB, Jaume Blasco.

Tables

1. Table 2.1 Indicators for the assessment of legislation, regulation, and funding of early childhood services (macro level)

2. Table 2.2 Assessment of the role of early childhood education in individual and social development (macro level)

3. Table 2.3 Assessment of the core principles of early childhood policies (macro level)

4. Table 2.4 Assessment of working conditions of early childhood education professionals (macro level)

5. Table 2.5 Assessment of institutional cultures in early childhood education services (meso level)

6. Table 2.6 Assessment of institutional policies of early childhood education services (meso level)

7. Table 2.7 Assessment of educational practices in early childhood education services (meso level)

8. Table 2.8 Assessment of the curricular/competency-based context in early childhood education services (micro level)

9. Table 2.9 Assessment of the physical context in psycho-pedagogical practices (micro level)

10. Table 2.10 Assessment of the relational context and joint activities (micro level)

11. Table 2.11 Assessment, quality, and reflective professionalism (micro level)

12. Table 3.1 Strategies and actions of community nursery schools as early childhood centres

13. Table 4.1 Actions and activities of the Bressols pel clima strategy

Foreword Rethinking and reforming early childhood services

Peter Moss^*

At a time when early childhood services have come to be recognised as an important part of the welfare state, with countries wanting to boost the attendance of young children, it is problematic that these services (with a few notable exceptions) are deeply and adversely affected by the legacy of their origins more than a century ago. That legacy is dysfunctional systems, divided between ‘education’ and ‘childcare’ services, and often too between providing for children under and over 3 years of age. These split systems are manifested in separate services, separate workforces, separate funding and separate purposes; moreover, these systems are frequently too rigid to respond adequately and appropriately to the diverse needs of changing societies and diverse communities. This dysfunction is compounded by an employment model based on an unsustainable and unjust assumption: that there exists a bottomless pool of female labour for recruitment to low paid and low status work in early childhood services, a model whose failure is apparent in intractable staff shortages reported in an increasing number of countries, both in and beyond Europe.

This inherited systemic dysfunction and failure has been made worse by a generation of neoliberal hegemony, which has wreaked havoc on societies and on public services, not least education and care. Within early childhood systems, neoliberalism has led to policies of standardisation, marketisation and privatisation, especially but not only in the Anglophone world. More generally, it has led to a technical, economistic and managerial discourse coming to dominate early childhood and all other sectors of education. In early childhood education, this discourse has constructed images of young children as ‘human capital’, their parents as consumers, early childhood workers as technicians, and early childhood services as factories producing predetermined outcomes, all in the service of generating predictable returns on investment (for a fuller discussion of the impact of neoliberalism on early childhood services, see Roberts-Holmes and Moss, 2021). It is a discourse I have described (Moss, 2014) as the ‘Story of Quality and High Returns’, with its narrative of applying correct human technology (‘quality’) at an early age to get huge paybacks on initial costs.