Global Education Review (Sep 2017)
Global Education Reform Movement: Challenge to Nordic Childhood
Abstract
The international comparison and competitive focus on (academic) performance, together with the growing awareness that early years impact children’s learning and development in education as well as over a lifetime, has resulted in heightened political interest in the learning of the youngest children. Politicians take action to achieve what they assume to be most effective approach, resulting in more centralized control, and more structured learning approaches introduced to children at still younger ages (Brogaard-Clausen, 2015: Brehony, 2000: Moss, 2013). In the Nordic countries1 there is a general concern for early years and the challenges facing early childhood education and care in an era of increasing globalization, with focus on accountability and academic competition (Ringsmose, Kragh-Müller, 2017). In Denmark, the social pedagogical tradition has been part of the culture of early childhood education for decades. In the social pedagogical tradition, relationships, play, and children’s influence are considered of key importance, and as the child’s natural way to learn about, and make sense of the world. It is considered that children learn and explore through play and participation embedded in the culture. Recently, the ministry of education has discussed more focused learning plans, and has tried out a program with more structured learning approaches. The gradual changes, together with the possible political action, are changes seriously threatening the social pedagogical tradition with more school-like, and more structured ways for children to interact. The purpose of this article is to present the Danish example as an alternative to the schoolification of early years that we see in many countries.
