ABSTRACT
In the rapidly changing educational scene it is easy to be blinkered by the pace of change and the flood of documents – and to fail to heed earlier warnings and insights into the development of young children. The early education and care of young children currently has a high profile with all political parties in the United Kingdom. The expansion in education and care for children under 5 years of age, and out-of-hours care for children in schools, has in part been driven by a desire to encourage more mothers of young children to enter the workforce, or to train to do so. Over recent years many of those concerned with early education have felt that balance and breadth in the curriculum in the early years in primary schools were being sacrificed in attempts to raise standards in literacy and numeracy and by the demand for primary schools, in England at least, to rank high in league tables. We can take comfort from not only the pledges of massive increases in funding, but also the curricular guidelines and other documents appearing that are aimed at improving the quality and breadth of education and care for children from an early age. The education and care of young children are among the devolved powers in the United Kingdom, therefore the documents come from Department for Education and Skills (DfES) for England, the Scottish Executive for Scotland and the Welsh Assembly for Wales. Priorities now include training of highly qualified staff, co-ordination of services and continuity of education as children transfer from home to school and from one stage of their education to the next. In 1972 there was a commitment to increase the provision of preschool
education for 3-and 4-year-olds, sadly changes in the economic climate meant that these promises were not fulfilled. However, the proposed expansion led to the funding of a programme of research to inform that expansion; many of these researches, undertaken in 1970s and 1980s, are still cited in current textbooks. Research can provide insights for policy and practice; there are lessons to be learnt from revisiting previous research to ensure we do not overgeneralize from limited evidence. It seems timely to encourage current students of early education, and
practitioners on advanced courses, to make a critical appraisal of previous research, to enable them to relate the findings to current issues and to gain a
framework from which to plan their own investigations. This second edition of Understanding Research in Early Education is planned with these aims. It includes revised chapters from the previous edition (Clark 1989) and from Children Under Five: educational research and evidence (Clark 1988). The latter presented my evaluation of research of relevance to the education of children under 5 years old, based on a personal commission from the Secretary of State for Education. The topics I have chosen are of contemporary relevance, and although most of the researches were undertaken in England and Scotland, the issues they address are of concern to a much wider readership. It is important that we ‘demystify’ educational research by showing that it
can be presented in understandable, but rigorous language. My aim throughout is to show that research is understandable and interesting; that it is a continuous process where we ignore past insights at our peril; and that it is, or should be, relevant to policy and practice.
