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Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Study of Government Policies Relating to the Early Childhood Sector Across Ten Countries
Abstract
The relationship between early childhood education and care (ECEC, birth to 8 years), children’s lifelong learning trajectory and the economy is undisputed. This relationship was particularly apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using an auto-ethnographical study, this chapter discusses government responses across 10 countries: Australia, Canada, Chile, Denmark, England, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy and Portugal reveal much about the perceptions of children and their early childhood professionals from a political, social and economic stance. The chapter interrogates how government responses situate children and early childhood professionals within the educational landscape in the countries studied and asks how it shapes early childhood education in particular. It illustrates that Governments overall, in the countries studied, did not recognise ECEC as fundamental to the educational continuum. In looking to the future, we question how early childhood education should develop to prepare children for the times we live in so that children are able to flourish and shape future societies with confidence and purpose. Finally, we ask whether the pandemic could possibly see the dawn of a new era in knowledge and understanding of the centrality of Early Childhood Education and Care. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
... A review of the literature showed that there were very few studies that included teachers from different countries. In studies that included a multi-country sample, the purpose differed from that of the present study, For example, the study by Anderson et al. (2022) focused on parental engagement and perspectives on distance learning and the study by Rothe et al. (2022) compared early childhood policies in different countries. These studies also adopted different research designs. ...
The negative impacts of COVID 19 on children’s holistic development have been reported by researchers around the world. This qualitative study explored teachers’ and parents’ perspectives on the impact of physical/social distancing and school closure policies on children’s socioemotional development. The study was conducted in fall 2020. The sample included four U.S. Preschools teachers (for 4-year-olds), four international preschool teachers (for 4, 5-year-olds), three U.S. Kindergarten teaches (for 5-year-olds), and 4 U.S. parents of 4 and 5-year-olds. Interviews were conducted over Zoom. Participants shared that the social deprivation experienced by children such as lack of friendships, absence of peer learning and peer communication, loss of play time, and lack of socialization impacted their children’s socialization skills, higher order thinking development, mental health, and activity levels. Participants also shared that their children exhibited externalizing behaviors such as acting out, throwing tantrums, seeking negative attention, aggressiveness, lying, and showing disrespect. Participants reported children’s life skills acquisition issues such as their over reliance on parents and difficulty in performing routine tasks. Participating teachers who taught 5-years-olds reported lower levels of fine motor skills among their students. The findings of the study suggest that although children have experienced severe academic learning loss during the pandemic, the post-pandemic ECE curriculum must keep a strong socio-emotional and practical life skills focus which contributes to children’s overall well-being. Future studies may adopt a mixed method design in multi-country contexts to evaluate the impact of interventions implemented by early childhood programs on children’s socioemotional health.
Early childhood educators work in a highly regulated environment in
many countries and are constantly asked to produce and improve
quality. Our international study of Australian, Canadian, Danish,
Georgian and Italian educators’ work examined their notions of
quality and how this was impacted by government policies and
documents such as frameworks, standards and curricula.
Quantitative data were analysed using cross-tabulation and
descriptive statistics, while qualitative data were analysed using
thematic analysis. The findings reveal that some educators’ notions
of quality aligned with their governments’ ideas, but many
revealed nuanced concepts. Educators expressed frustration at
these differences and the perceived limitations and impact of the
imposed policies and documents. Many educators identified how
these differences were experienced in the workplace and impacted
their teaching, relationships and children’s learning. This study will
interest policymakers, educators, and teacher educators.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused major disruptions to all areas of work and family life, including early childhood education and care (ECEC) arrangements. Research demonstrates that instability (that is, interruptions in care arrangements) and lack of durability in ECEC arrangements (that is, maintaining the same care arrangements over time) can exacerbate parental stress and negatively affect child development. Drawing on data from an original December 2020 survey of 882 parents with young children in four Canadian provinces, we examine parental choices around care prior to the pandemic and examine the immediate and longer-term impact of COVID-19 on these arrangements. We find in our sample that: (i) out-of home arrangements were more unstable and somewhat less durable than in-home arrangements; (ii) loss of access during the pandemic due to child care centre closure was lowest in BC, although this was offset by a relatively high rate of voluntary removal; (iii) Ontario had relatively high rates of loss of access due to closure and voluntary removal; (iv) overall 64% of child care arrangements proved durable but; (v) durability was lower at lower incomes and in Ontario. In contrast, durability was significantly higher in Quebec, highlighting the role that ECEC policy investments can play in shielding parents and children from destabilizing events.
El sistema educativo chileno ha debido enfrentar importantes desafíos derivados de la pandemia por covid-19. En el caso de la educación parvularia, a estos desafíos se añade además su ingreso al nuevo Sistema de Aseguramiento de la Calidad. A través de un enfoque cualitativo, y considerando las particularidades del liderazgo en educación parvularia, esta investigación tuvo como objetivo explorar cómo las líderes abordan los desafíos de la nueva institucionalidad en el período postpandemia. Los resultados muestran que la mayoría de las directoras tiene una visión positiva del proceso, viéndolo como una oportunidad de aprendizaje, construyendo sentido con su equipo pedagógico. Sin perjuicio de aquello, algunas directoras advierten de experiencias más bien negativas, en donde los nuevos requerimientos son trabajados de forma mecánica, sin entender el sentido que traía consigo esta reforma. Estos resultados dan cuenta de importantes desafíos que considerar para la implementación exitosa de esta nueva institucionalidad.
Worldwide, millions of children have missed out on early childhood education and care (ECEC) due to the closure of their settings during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, little is known about the socio-emotional impact of these closures on young children. This paper draws upon a study of 506 parents of children aged 1–10 years in Ireland who completed the online Play and Learning in the Early Years (PLEY) Survey during lockdown in May and June 2020. Parents responded to a series of questions about their child’s play, learning and development during lockdown, and described the impact of the restrictions on their children’s lives. The study was approved by the institutional ethics committee. Findings indicate that most children missed their friends, playing with other children, and the routine and structure of ECEC and school settings. Parents described the negative impact of the closure of these settings on their children’s social and emotional well-being, which they suggested, resulted in tantrums, anxiety, clinginess, boredom, and under-stimulation. However, some parents did report positive aspects of lockdown for their children and the family, including more time to play with siblings and a break from the usual routine. While the findings of the PLEY study indicate that children’s socio-emotional development was severely disrupted during lockdown, with a variety of negative impacts, this experience was not universal. Moreover, the findings suggest that families missed the nurturing environment provided by ECEC programs that supported their children's socio-emotional development, as well as the structure and routine afforded by their children's participation in early childhood programs.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented changes in the lives of 1.6 billion children and adolescents. First nonrepresentative studies from China, India, Brazil, the US, Spain, Italy, and Germany pointed to a negative mental health impact. The current study is the first nationwide representative study to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and mental health of children and adolescents in Germany from the perspective of children themselves. A representative online survey was conducted among n = 1586 families with 7- to 17-year-old children and adolescents between May 26 and June 10. The survey included internationally established and validated instruments for measuring HRQoL (KIDSCREEN-10), mental health problems (SDQ), anxiety (SCARED), and depression (CESDC). Results were compared with data from the nationwide, longitudinal, representative BELLA cohort study (n = 1556) conducted in Germany before the pandemic. Two-thirds of the children and adolescents reported being highly burdened by the COVID-19 pandemic. They experienced significantly lower HRQoL (40.2% vs. 15.3%), more mental health problems (17.8% vs. 9.9%) and higher anxiety levels (24.1% vs. 14.9%) than before the pandemic. Children with low socioeconomic status, migration background and limited living space were affected significantly more. Health promotion and prevention strategies need to be implemented to maintain children’s and adolescents’ mental health, improve their HRQoL, and mitigate the burden caused by COVID-19, particularly for children who are most at risk.
This working paper presents the results of an online survey among primary and secondary school teachers on the topic of distance learning during the Covid 19 pandemic. The survey has been promoted and realized by the Flc Cgil (Federation of Knowledge Workers) in collaboration with Giuseppe Di Vittorio Foundation. The Survey on Distance Learning was conducted throughout the country, through an online questionnaire, Cawi technique, from the 3 rd of April to the 7 th of May 2020, collecting 1 197 valid questionnaires. The
following aspects have been considered in the analysis here presented: the decision making processes implemented in school contexts; the previous teachers ’ distance teaching and training courses experiences; the available tool s and the adopted teaching methods; students participation to online courses and the inequalities surged during the
lockdown; teachers ’ workload and their work life balance; the difficulties encountered and the overall judgement about this experience. In p articular, the relationship between these factors and the respondents ’ sociodemographic (sex, age, province of residence) and occupational profiles (education, contract) have been. The analysis highlights the many problems faced by teachers together with their ability to react and intervene to ensure the performance of school activities, in a context characterized by rising inequalities (between territorial and organizational contexts) and a huge diversification in distance learning experiences, wi th a plurality of management styles, tools and practices adopted, also as a result of a lack of coordination, support and overall shared orientation
Objective
To investigate the effects of COVID-19 pandemic and related home confinement on symptom profile, symptom severity and exacerbation of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms and related factors among young subjects with OCD.
Method
Young subjects who have been followed up with a primary diagnosis of OCD in a university hospital were reached by telephone or online programs to assess symptom profile, symptom severity and exacerbation during pandemic. Children's Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive (CY-BOCS) and Clinical Global Impression- Severity (CGI-S) Scales were used to rate symptom profile and severity before pandemic and during pandemic periods.
Results
There was a significant increase in the frequency of contamination obsessions (p=0.008) and cleaning/washing compulsions (p=0.039) during pandemic period. CY-BOCS obsessions (p<0.001), compulsions subscales (p<0.001) and total scores (p<0.001), and CGI-S scores (p<0.001) during pandemic period were statistically higher than before pandemic period. There was a significant relationship between the change in CY-BOCS scores with talking/searching in the social environment about COVID-19, daily preoccupation about COVID-19, duration of OCD diagnosis and diagnosis of COVID-19 in someone familiar.
Conclusions
Young subjects with OCD may develop additional symptoms and worsen already existing symptoms of OCD during COVID-19 pandemic.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) has resulted in a significantly large number of psychological consequences, including sleep health. The present study evaluated sleep patterns, sleep disturbances, and associated factors in Chinese preschoolers confined at home during the COVID‐19 outbreak. Caregivers of 1619 preschoolers (aged 4–6 years) recruited from 11 preschools in Zunyi, Guizhou province completed the Children’s Sleep Habit Questionnaire (CSHQ) between 17th and 19th February 2020. Data were compared to a sociodemographically similar sample of preschoolers (included in the 11 preschools) in 2018. Compared to the 2018 sample, the confined preschoolers demonstrated changes in sleep patterns characterized by later bedtimes and wake times, longer nocturnal and shorter nap sleep durations, comparable 24‐hr sleep duration, and fewer caregiver‐reported sleep disturbances. Moreover, behavioural practices (sleeping arrangement, reduced electronic device use, regular diet) and parenting practices (harmonious family atmosphere and increased parent‐child communication) were associated with less sleep disturbances in the confined sample. The present study provides the first description of the impact of prolonged home confinement during the COVID‐19 outbreak on sleep patterns and sleep disturbances in preschoolers, as well as highlighting the importance of the link between sleep health and family factors. Given that disrupted and insufficient sleep has been linked to immune system dysfunction, our findings also have potential implications for resilience to infection in young children during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Future studies should further explore deficient sleep as a risk factor for coronavirus infection.
Background:
Healthy childhood development is fostered through sufficient physical activity (PA; including time outdoors), limiting sedentary behaviours (SB), and adequate sleep; collectively known as movement behaviours. Though the COVID-19 virus outbreak has changed the daily lives of children and youth, it is unknown to what extent related restrictions may compromise the ability to play and meet movement behaviour recommendations. This secondary data analysis examined the immediate impacts of COVID-19 restrictions on movement and play behaviours in children and youth.
Methods:
A national sample of Canadian parents (n = 1472) of children (5-11 years) or youth (12-17 years) (54% girls) completed an online survey that assessed immediate changes in child movement and play behaviours during the COVID-19 outbreak. Behaviours included PA and play, SB, and sleep. Family demographics and parental factors that may influence movement behaviours were assessed. Correlations between behaviours and demographic and parental factors were determined. For open-ended questions, word frequency distributions were reported.
Results:
Only 4.8% (2.8% girls, 6.5% boys) of children and 0.6% (0.8% girls, 0.5% boys) of youth were meeting combined movement behaviour guidelines during COVID-19 restrictions. Children and youth had lower PA levels, less outside time, higher SB (including leisure screen time), and more sleep during the outbreak. Parental encouragement and support, parental engagement in PA, and family dog ownership were positively associated with healthy movement behaviours. Although families spent less time in PA and more time in SB, several parents reported adopting new hobbies or accessing new resources.
Conclusions:
This study provides evidence of immediate collateral consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak, demonstrating an adverse impact on the movement and play behaviours of Canadian children and youth. These findings can guide efforts to preserve and promote child health during the COVID-19 outbreak and crisis recovery period, and to inform strategies to mitigate potential harm during future pandemics.
While women were already doing most of the world’s unpaid care work prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, emerging research suggests that the crisis and its subsequent shutdown response have resulted in a dramatic increase in this burden. It is likely that the negative impacts for women and families will last for years without proactive interventions. What we commonly refer to as “the economy” would not function without the (often unrecognized) foundation of work provided by the “care economy”: the reproduction of everyday life through cooking, raising, children, and so forth. The paid economy has slowed not only because people are physically not allowed into workplaces, but also because many families currently need to raise and educate their children without institutional support, which is reducing remunerated working hours and increasing stress. It has long been recognized that gross domestic product ignores the care economy and heterodox economists have promoted alternative economic systems that could value care work and facilitate a fairer sharing of domestic labor while promoting environmental and economic sustainability. This policy brief builds on recent work on the care economy to explore implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and opportunities for addressing the burden of unpaid care work.
The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has spread across the United States, resulting in significant changes in almost all aspects daily life. These changes place parents at increased risk for parental burnout. Parental burnout is a chronic condition resulting from high levels of parenting-related stress due to a mismatch between the demands of parenting and the resources available for parents to meet those demands. Research on parental burnout has suggested that parents who experience burnout are more likely to engage in child abuse and neglect, placing children at risk for detrimental short- and long-term outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to review the concept of parental burnout, discuss parental burnout in the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic, and focus specifically on the effects of child maltreatment. Implications for practitioners will be discussed.
This Viewpoint argues that the COVID-19 crisis offers a unique chance to imagine more equitable societies and education systems. It is also a call to action, to take meaningful action to bring about that desired future.
Despite the relevance of early childhood services to children, families and nation states, the sector is largely undervalued and under resourced and, is not recognised as an established profession. Using collaborative auto ethnography, researchers from six different countries (Australia, Chile, England, Germany, Ireland and the United States) all members of the EECERA Professionalisation Special Interest Group (P-SIG) share their reflections on the professionalisation of early childhood. While professionalisation is associated with discretionary decision making that is premised upon an accepted body of knowledge, neoliberalism imposes constraints from on top, identifying through various forms of curricula, legislated standards, and policies what is appropriate and desirable practice. As a consequence, early childhood personnel are restricted in their professional agency and, their work is characterised by tension, as they strive to balance external expectations from a neoliberal stance and their own perspectives that prioritise a children's rights perspective. This paper questions how the sector manages the constraints imposed on it in a neoliberal political and social world. It calls upon those in the profession to resist neoliberalism and, to make a stand in terms of what is considered best practice. It further argues that ongoing debate is required as to the boundaries of what would be called the early childhood profession: considerations of ways in which the different sectors (education, health, and welfare) contribute to a holistic approach in working with children balanced against the requirement for a profession to have an identified and discrete body of knowledge. The implications of this for professionalisation of early childhood are widespread and, worthy of debate. While the inclusion of different sectors for example, addresses the holistic nature of early childhood work, it risks creating a broad and diffused knowledge base that might make it difficult to claim professionalisation. We hope that this paper contributes to reenergizing conversations on the professionalisation of the early childhood sector.
Higher levels of material well-being lead almost inevitably to giving priority to individualism and personal advancement, often at the expense of civic conscience. A proposal for integrating sustainability into the curriculum is presented in the third year of the degree in Early Childhood Education at the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (UIC). Projects on sustainable food are planned and elaborated to this aim. This study seeks to apply a global and systemic approach to solving socio-environmental problems and to check whether education for sustainable development (ESD) helps to develop and encourage actions that promote sustainable development. Quantitative research was conducted using a pre-test/post-test quasi experimental design separated by a period of didactic training in the project method. The results presented in this article show the students’ sustainability competencies (SC) improve after working on didactic proposals in a global manner. It is concluded that elaborating competencies in education for sustainable development enables an integrated approach of knowledge, procedures, attitudes and values in teaching through promoting the project method in multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary teams, which enhances future teachers’ sustainability competencies.
While the discipline of language policy and planning (LPP) has been a relatively young one with a history of just several decades, it has produced a vast array of studies covering diverse contexts of the world and employing a range of research methodologies, including analysis of policy discourses, ethnography, political economic analysis, historical-structural analysis, and so on. A much less noticed but fundamentally important topic pertains to the recognition that all knowledge is necessarily partial and positioned and the positioning of the researcher necessarily shapes the research process and the knowledge that is ultimately produced and legitimated. The researcher's own explicit recognition and critical analysis of one's own positioning and how this positioning might figure in the political, epistemological and practical impact of one's own knowledge production act in LPP research thus becomes both an ethical and practical need if not a requirement. In this chapter, I shall illustrate with examples from LPP studies in Hong Kong how a researcher might engage in this critical analysis and gain insights by multiplying one's frames of reference through becoming a critical 'tweener', shifting one's own research lens between different research paradigms and epistemological positions.
Empirical research within critical psychology is strongly associated with the use of qualitative methods. In the field of qualitative psychology a distinction can be made between experiential and critical approaches (Braun & Clarke, 2012a, Reicher, 2000), both of which involve some kind of critique of mainstream psychology. Experiential approaches aim to capture participants’ experiences and perspectives and ground research in participants’ accounts, rather than researcher’s categories, but view language as a reflection of “internal categories of understanding” (Reicher, 2000: 3), and so assume it is possible to ‘read off’ participants’ thoughts, feelings and practices from their use of language. By contrast, critical approaches challenge what experiential approaches have in common with mainstream psychology – the assumption that language is only of interest as a description of inner states. Critical approaches (usually some version of discourse analysis) understand and analyse language as something that is constitutive, rather than reflective, of our social and psychological words, as a form of social action. One of the most common qualitative methods is (some form of) thematic analysis (TA); however, there is debate about whether TA is an experiential or a critical approach, and thus an appropriate analytic method for critical psychology.
The aim of this article is to review the literature on autoethnography as a research method. It will first describe what is meant by autoethnography, or evocative narratives, and consider the particular features of this type of method. The paper will go on to explore the advantages, limitations and criticisms this research method has endured since its emergence during the 1980s. Finally, the different approaches to the evaluation of autoethnography will be reviewed. Resumen El propósito de este artículo es analizar la literatura sobre autoetnografía como método de investigación. Primero se describirá lo que significa el término autoetnografía o narrativa evocativa, y se analizarán las características principales de este método de investigación. Posteriormente el artículo explora las ventajas, limitaciones y críticas que este método ha enfrentado desde su surgimiento durante la época de los 80s. Finalmente, los diferentes enfoques utilizados para evaluar una autoetnografía serán examinados. Palabras clave: Autoetnografía, Métodos de investigación, Escritura Narrativa Résumé Cet article se donne pour objectif de réviser la littérature sur l'utilisation de l'autoethnographie comme une méthodologie de recherche. Dans la première partie il décrive qu'est-ce que c'est l'autoethnographie, ou bien les récits évocateurs, en considérant les particularités de cette méthode. Postérieurement, l'article explore les avantages, les limitations et les critiques que cette méthodologie a endurée depuis son apparition dans les années 80. Il conclut avec la révision de différentes approches pour l'évaluation de l'autoethnographie.
In the drive to improve standards, the collection and dissemination of numerical data still directs much contemporary educational policy. However, recent publications and debates seemingly attempt to reorient discussion from performance to learning. In support, constructivism is often referenced as a contributor in this endeavour. However, constructivism is not a single unified theory either of knowledge or pedagogy. This article identifies one version of constructivist thinking, social constructivism, both in terms of its underlying epistemology (theory of knowledge) and related pedagogy. Contemporary educational theories are then outlined to demonstrate that many practical solutions and theoretical ideas now presented as ‘good learning and teaching’ have much in common with social constructivist thinking. Finally, the article concludes by identifying two issues that require further discussion and debate if pedagogy of a social constructivist nature is to be considered.
This article highlights key points with respect to each of the following: 1) School systems around the world were stagnant before Covid-19 and had been for some time; 2) Therefore there was considerable pent-up energy to make some changes. Covid-19 has both exposed and exacerbated what was wrong with the system, but has also provided opportunities to make changes amidst the confusion; 3) Change does not get more complex than it is right now. The complexity facing us changes and becomes more convoluted every day; and 4) Change will happen. We just do not know what it will look like. We have on our hands “the battle of the decade” with respect to public education systems.
As the world looks to the future and ways to safely return to normal, in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have a unique opportunity to reset our priorities and redefine what this normal looks like. For education communities, this is a chance to take a close look at aspects of education systems that we have taken for granted for far too long.
Policy documents from OECD and UNESCO have been stressing the need to prepare students for what has been termed a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world. They emphasise social-emotional competencies as necessary for coping with such conditions. This qualitative research frames the COVID-19 outbreak as an extreme case of VUCA that grants the opportunity to examine whether our teacher preparation curriculum provides teacher students with these social-emotional competencies that they are expected to model and are necessary for coping with such circumstances. Fifty-four student teachers and 24 teacher educators responded to open-ended questionnaires, and 16 semi-structured interviews with teacher educators were analysed based on grounded theory. Results demonstrate that our student teachers struggle substantially with VUCA circumstances and do not seem to receive sufficient preparation in the domain of social-emotional competencies. These troubling findings serve as a wake-up call to increase a social-emotional orientation in teacher education curriculum.
Teacher education in Ontario, Canada has had to respond to a myriad of challenges presented by the COVID-19 crisis, particularly after government authorities decided to close schools until students and faculty could return safely. In this paper, we examine some of the major challenges that are being faced by teacher educators as they prepare for September 2020, struggling to re-imagine teaching and learning remotely. We also examine the issues facing teacher education using the lens of ‘complex adaptive systems’, systems that are unpredictable, have many interacting parts, and are characterised by constant uncertainty both from within and particularly from outside. Some issues affecting teacher education and teacher educators causing this uncertainty in Ontario include 1) access to effective online connection and support, 2) educator professional development for online learning, 3) conversion of face-to-face courses to successful online courses, and 4) the recognition of student teachers’ practica experiences. Although this article provides a snapshot of the Ontario context and the challenges it currently faces in teacher education, it also presents some solutions, and by thinking of the context as an example of a complex adaptive system, it also holds out hope for the future.
Background and objectives:
The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 has changed American society in ways that are difficult to capture in a timely manner. With this study, we take advantage of daily survey data collected before and after the crisis started to investigate the hypothesis that the crisis has worsened parents' and children's psychological well-being. We also examine the extent of crisis-related hardships and evaluate the hypothesis that the accumulation of hardships will be associated with parent and child psychological well-being.
Methods:
Daily survey data were collected between February 20 and April 27, 2020, from hourly service workers with a young child (aged 2-7) in a large US city (N = 8222 person-days from 645 individuals). A subsample completed a one-time survey about the effects of the crisis fielded between March 23 and April 26 (subsample n = 561).
Results:
Ordered probit models revealed that the frequency of parent-reported daily negative mood increased significantly since the start of the crisis. Many families have experienced hardships during the crisis, including job loss, income loss, caregiving burden, and illness. Both parents' and children's well-being in the postcrisis period was strongly associated with the number of crisis-related hardships that the family experienced.
Conclusions:
Consistent with our hypotheses, in families that have experienced multiple hardships related to the coronavirus disease 2019 crisis, both parents' and children's mental health is worse. As the crisis continues to unfold, pediatricians should screen for mental health, with particular attention to children whose families are especially vulnerable to economic and disease aspects of the crisis.
The massive damages of COVID-19 may be incalculable. But in the spirit of never wasting a good crisis, COVID-19 represents an opportunity to rethink education. The rethinking should not be about improving schooling, but should focus on the what, how, and where of learning. This article highlights some of the questions that schools can ask as they reimagine post-COVID education.
Objective
Disease containment of COVID-19 has necessitated widespread social isolation. We aimed to establish what is known about how loneliness and disease containment measures impact on the mental health in children and adolescents.
Method
For this rapid review, we searched MEDLINE, PSYCHINFO, and Web of Science for articles published between 01/01/1946 and 03/29/2020. 20% of articles were double screened using pre-defined criteria and 20% of data was double extracted for quality assurance.
Results
83 articles (80 studies) met inclusion criteria. Of these, 63 studies reported on the impact of social isolation and loneliness on the mental health of previously healthy children and adolescents (n=51,576; mean age 15.3) 61 studies were observational; 18 were longitudinal and 43 cross sectional studies assessing self-reported loneliness in healthy children and adolescents. One of these studies was a retrospective investigation after a pandemic. Two studies evaluated interventions. Studies had a high risk of bias although longitudinal studies were of better methodological quality. Social isolation and loneliness increased the risk of depression, and possibly anxiety at the time loneliness was measured and between 0.25 to 9 years later. Duration of loneliness was more strongly correlated with mental health symptoms than intensity of loneliness.
Conclusion
Children and adolescents are probably more likely to experience high rates of depression and probably anxiety during and after enforced isolation ends. This may increase as enforced isolation continues. Clinical services should offer preventative support and early intervention where possible and be prepared for an increase in mental health problems.
Biografische Erfahrungen frühpädagogischer Fachkräfte, insbesondere ihre Kindheitserfahrungen, werden als relevant für das professionelle Denken und Handeln angesehen. Dabei ist dieser Zusammenhang bislang unzureichend empirisch erforscht. Hier setzt die vorliegende Studie an. Untersucht wird die Konstitution des Verhältnisses von biografischen Erfahrungen und der professionellen Identität frühpädagogischer Fachkräfte in Kindertageseinrichtungen auf der Basis autobiografisch-narrativer Interviews. Insbesondere biografische Krisen sind für die (Neu-)Konstitution des Verhältnisses bedeutsam.
[Early childhood professionals’ biographical experi-ences, especially from their childhood and youth, are of relevance for the constitution of their professional identity. As only few empirical studies exist so far, which focus on that topic, this study explores the interrelationship of biography and professional iden-tity of early childhood professionals in preschools by conducting autobiographical interviews. Especially biographical crises have been found to be essential for a reconstitution of this relationship.]
This paper highlights the importance of societal culture to developing theory, policy and practice within an increasingly globalising educational context. It argues that tensions exist between globalisation and societal culture and that globalisation makes the recognition of societal culture and cross-cultural similarities and differences more, not less, important. Consequently, the inclusion of societal culture as a factor in investigations covering such themes as the curriculum, teaching and learning, leadership and school-based management is seen as an imperative for the future development of comparative education. Accordingly, the first part of the paper clarifies the concept of 'globalisation'. In the second part, globalisation and societal culture are juxtaposed and the interface between them is explored. The third part offers a set of dimensions by which to gauge the influence of, and to compare, cultures. Finally, we illustrate our argument for greater cultural sensitivity by raising some key issues concerning school reform and improvement.
Who is the early childhood professional? What is the discipline of early childhood? Six images are used to exemplify the early childhood educator and eight specific issues are identified for discussion which are relevant to the early childhood profession including appropriate qualifications, nomenclature, roles, profit‐making services, and partnership with parents. Concrete tasks for the profession to undertake conclude the article.
Research design is fundamental to all scientific endeavors, at all levels and in all institutional settings. In many social science disciplines, however, scholars working in an interpretive-qualitative tradition get little guidance on this aspect of research from the positivist-centered training they receive. This book is an authoritative examination of the concepts and processes underlying the design of an interpretive research project. Such an approach to design starts with the recognition that researchers are inevitably embedded in the intersubjective social processes of the worlds they study. In focusing on researchers' theoretical, ontological, epistemological, and methods choices in designing research projects, Schwartz-Shea and Yanow set the stage for other volumes in the Routledge Series on Interpretive Methods. They also engage some very practical issues, such as ethics reviews and the structure of research proposals. This concise guide explores where research questions come from, criteria for evaluating research designs, how interpretive researchers engage with world-making, context, systematicity and flexibility, reflexivity and positionality, and such contemporary issues as data archiving and the researcher's body in the field.
How are we to educate young people of, and for, these times in a way which takes into account the existential and moral dilemmas of our age? We argue that the current education system fails to address the full implications of historical change in relation to ethics and equity. In what follows, we offer some ways of describing and theorising contemporary life in an age of uncertainty. We offer it as a knowledge base from which teachers, principals and policy makers might draw in creating new morally and ethically sound policy discourses. We follow with some new frameworks for helping students to deal with the altered context of moral and political life.
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Why every teacher needs to know about childhood trauma. The Conversation
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