ABSTRACT

The European Union has shown a sustained interest in early childhood since the early 1990s (Urban, 2015). Although it has no powers to directly govern and regulate educational policies and practices – this rests entirely with the individual Member States – the EU has produced a number of key policy documents that link the development of services for young children and their families to its broader, macropolitical aims in areas including economic development, citizenship, children’s and human rights. Important policy documents that encourage Member States to ensure and increase access to early childhood services include the 1992 Council Recommendation on Childcare (Council of the European Communities, 1992), Quality Targets in Services for Young Children (European Commission Network on Childcare and Other Measures to Reconcile Employment and Family Responsibilities, 1996), the 2011 EU Communication Early Childhood Education and Care: Providing all our children with the best start for the world of tomorrow (European Commission, 2011), and the Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care, published in 2014 (Working Group on Early Childhood Education and Care, 2014). The 2011 Communication (and the subsequent Council Recommendation) and the 2014 Quality Framework are particularly important milestones that mark a conceptual shift in how the European Union understands the purpose of institutions for young children and their families: where the documents from the 1990’s see childcare primarily as a commodity for working parents, and as a tool to increase female labour market participation, the 2011 and 2014 documents are based on the conviction that participation in ‘High quality ECEC is beneficial for all children, but particularly for those with a socioeconomically disadvantaged, migrant or Roma background, or with special educational needs, including disabilities’ (Council of the European Union, 2011). There is now a clear understanding, expressed in the policies, that education and care are inseparable and equally important in young children’s experiences; Early Childhood Education 109and Care (ECEC) has replaced Childcare as the accepted term to refer to services for young children from birth to the start of compulsory primary school. I have discussed the implications (including some pitfalls) of this conceptual shift in detail elsewhere (see, for instance, Urban, 2014, 2015). Here I just want to point out that one of the major effects of the adoption of ECEC as the guiding concept has, for the first time, brought young children into the picture as bearers of rights (to education) 1 and beneficiaries of early childhood services.