ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses attention on the transactions of practitioners and children in three early years learning (EYL) centres in England in order to examine the claim that the playful environments of EYL can make a difference to the life chances of children, enhancing their education and negating inequalities. Research in the UK focusing on the parent school relationship has found that parents' intervention in their children's schooling is largely determined by their social class, habitus and capital. Ball et al attest that childcare settings have two main impacts: they shape children's socialization experiences; and set children on educational trajectories. Within England, teaching and learning in all EYL settings is governed and regulated by government policy as defined in the EYFS framework. The good child across all three settings was characterized as having good listening skills, demonstrating an interest primarily in academic play and displaying appropriate behaviour in all other play forms.
