The relationship between parents and ECEC

Socio-cultural historical analysis of the evolution of ECEC serves to set the context for the institutional provision of education for young children as separate from parenting in the family context. Public interest in the education and care of the young child has been evident throughout the last three centuries in Western Europe and the US (Hays 1998; Lee et al. 2014), where the notions of the private sphere of family life and the public sphere of social and community life have given rise to decisions as to who should have responsibility for guiding the moral and educational development of young children.

Davis (2010) locates the ongoing debate on the relationship between and responsibility for infant care and education strongly within a cultural-historical tradition, arising from the influence of Pestalozzi in the later 18^th and early 19^th centuries.

The emerging discourse illustrated above shows how the importance of the home and the mother-child dyad, characterised by loving intimacy, in the care of the young child was repositioned as a matter for the public arena, marked by official scrutiny. Public interest in this approach waned for a time, but saw a resurgence as the subsequent kindergarten movement and its architect, Fröbel, later reached a wide receptive audience internationally, including in the UK and USA. The kindergarten stressed family values as underpinning playful provision for early childhood, which stood outside the family domain (Davis 2010). Thus the scene was set for the rise of educational institutions that were held accountable for the development and learning of the young children who attended. The child was socialised into the norms of the society and its values by professional educators, increasingly trained in traditions of provision and practice derived from educational schools of thinking (such as, for example, Montessori, the McMillan sisters and Isaacs; see Giardiello 2013). There came a rise of educational theorists interested in the social world of the child, such as Dewey in the US (Dewey 1929), who considered the relational connections between the child and her peers, as well as the adults who cared for her, to be essential for the growth of a well-rounded citizen. The onus of the moral and educational formation of the young child therefore moved from the solely private sphere of the parent and family context to a shared partnership with the public sphere in the interest of society in general. The concept of the parent as first educator of their child now ran in parallel to the learning experiences gained by the young child within the institution of an ECEC setting.

As Davis (2010) exemplifies:

Thus the responsibility for the inculcation of citizenship in the young child was deemed part of a shared responsibility, namely of the parent and the state. It must be questioned, however, whether parents themselves welcomed, or even fully comprehended, the political and social nuances of this power shift. The value of the practical experience of parenting, the phronesis of practical judgment in action, is reduced by its comparison to a bureaucratic ideal of effective practice as evidenced in ECEC settings (Smeyers 2010b).

In recent years we have seen a further shift, from placing emphasis on the responsibility of the professional domain of ECEC to extending the remit of social policy to regulating parenting itself (cf Lee et al. 2014; Gillies, Edwards, and Horsley 2017). Government agencies tasked with the social welfare of the child (Peters 2012) have been increasingly concerned with the instigation, generation and implementation of social policy, which acts as an intervention in life of the family. In the more recent turn to parenting (cf. Lee et al. 2014), the upbringing of children by their parents has become politicised, narrowed to a specific function, that of ensuring parents were concerned with ‘doing things for their children rather than being with them’ (Suissa 2006, 72).

In the parenting view of raising children, children’s outcomes are seen in terms of parental determinism (Lee 2014); that is, parental norms and behaviours are seen to determine how the child will develop, cognitively, socially and emotionally. How a parent brings up their child will determine their outcomes not only in early childhood but in the long term, so that what the parent does impacts not only on their child in their home context, when young, but also on society as a whole, for good or for bad (Furedi 2014). This has discourse has intensified under the influence of ‘evidence’ provided by neuroscience (dubbed ‘neuroparenting’ by Macvarish 2016), government reports (Allen 2011; see also Vandenbroeck, this issue, on this) and longitudinal research studies, for example the Effective Provision of Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education (EPPSE 3–16) and the Home Learning Environment (HLE) (Sylva et al. 2014) that advocate for a particular means of delivering the ‘social good’ (and presuppose a conception of what that is).

In sum, then, over time we have seen two shifts in thinking in relation to early childhood education and care: first, from a shared responsibility between parents and ECEC settings for learning and development to a more accountable and measureable performance as evidenced in ECEC settings and governed, today, by the EYFS in the UK (DfE 2017); second, raising children as parenting, conceived along similar lines to the professional context and so accountable to society for the upbringing of future citizens (Smeyers 2010a; Ramaekers and Suissa 2012).

Thus social and educational policy relating to ECEC today is concerned with both the professional and the domestic. This is evidenced by a seminal study into the quality of early childhood experiences, the Effective Provision of Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education (EPPSE 3–16) and the Home Learning Environment (HLE) (Sylva et al. 2014). The same measures of quality used to judge provision of school-based education is applied to the ‘Home Learning Environment’. The study tracked 3000 children from age 3 to 16 with the aim of exploring the characteristics of effective pre-school provision and the subsequent educational outcomes for these children. The research also included a cohort of c. 300 five-year-old children who had not attended any pre-school provision. The findings were unequivocal, despite the low numbers of participants, that:

The cost to the government, in both social and economic measures, for children to remain outside the sphere of formal early years educational influences, and wholly within the private realm of the home, is made explicit. Couched in economic terms, it lays the basis for effective ECEC provision firmly on the future gains for society, and in particular the societal need for adults to be economically competent.

The identification of the domestic space as an HLE illustrates the increased reach of formal educational thinking into the private sphere (Smeyers 2010a), and the ways in which the private sphere is encouraged to mirror the public one, i.e. that the activities that comprise a good HLE match the activities that denote quality in a pre-school setting, such as reading, sharing books and going to the library, going out on visits, playing with print (letters and numbers), singing songs and nursery rhymes, drawing and painting (making meaningful marks) and playing with friends (Sylva et al. 2014). Where parenting is deemed to offer an inadequate home learning environment, a more extreme version of the surveillance of parenting practices (Peters 2012) arises. Thus the provision of parenting education programmes is offered at a variety of levels, from general parenting courses to those specifically designed for parents identified by the law courts as a potential risk to their child through neglect. Such parenting classes exist at one end of a continuum of ECEC interventions, widespread in the UK and elsewhere, that also provides a universal offer of parental support to enhance educational outcomes, such as free home reading books (Desforges and Abouchar 2003).

Education and Security Policy

In England, all educational institutions, ranging from ECEC settings, primary and secondary schooling and the tertiary education of adults in Higher Education are subject to the Counter Terrorism and Security Act (Revised Prevent Duty guidance) (DfE 2015). As noted above, this is the duty to ‘have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’ (DfE 2015, 3), and in education this prevention partly entails the active promotion of ‘British’ values as well as a renewed focus on ‘safeguarding’. ECEC settings are responsible for the need to promote integration through the explicit pedagogical use of fundamental British values, as well as for referring any individual deemed to be vulnerable to radicalisation or harm from extremism (Lumb 2018).

The specific ‘British’ values are defined as: democracy, rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs (DfE 2015). The explicit promotion of these values has arisen from a historical concern to identify common values held across the four nations of the UK, thus giving characteristics of a common British identity and aiming to enhance social cohesion using a shared sense of what being a citizen of the UK actually means in terms of underpinning beliefs and ways of behaving (Maylor 2016).

As a result of this policy the notion of ‘British values’ permeates educational policy and curricula in England and Wales currently (DfE 2015). Notably, these values are not deemed ‘English’ or indeed universal human values. Nor are they human rights values (Struthers 2017). Instead they are termed ‘Fundamental British values’ due to the belief that British society endorses these (Hildebrand 2017).

The introduction of statutory obligations driven by security policy has been critically discussed in terms of ‘securitisation’, i.e. educational institutions are responsible for operationalising security policy and related agendas, (see e.g. (Winter and Mills 2018; Lundie 2017). As discussed above, the increased focus on the quality of provision in ECEC settings to ensure the optimal learning and development outcomes of young children also enacts a form of risk prevention; early intervention to minimize the future burden of the individual on the state. The emphasis on British values, therefore, can be seen in terms of this securitisation, and is in line with a wider focus on values and citizenship in recent years and the role of education in fostering these. For example, over the past 30 years, we have seen an interest in family values in the United States (Collins 1998), values education in the primary school (Powney et al. 1995), Global Citizenship Education (Mannion et al. 2011) and Education for Sustainable Development in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) settings (Praming Samuelsson 2011). These are but some of the innovations into creative curricula, aimed at providing children with educational experiences for meaningful learning beyond the classroom with community cohesion at its heart.

The notion that values influence behaviour is strong, so that it is not only the teaching or modeling of values by parent and practitioner that is the priority, but also its impact on the choice of future behaviours, based on these shared values (Powney et al. 1995). Hence, in ECEC policy as elsewhere in education, the formation of the character of the ‘becoming’ future citizen is foregrounded (Healy 2019).

In addition to their espoused education and care primary function, ECEC leaders now have the added responsibility of mediating between state institutions and the family context (Vincent 2017), as the Prevent strategy requires them to monitor the parents as well as the child as part of their safeguarding responsibilities, and to ensure they fulfil their obligation to record and report incidents in line with security policy. This increased securitisation of ECEC settings, achieved through an enhanced surveillance of young children and, by proxy, their parents, comes at a cost, however, as it gives rise to concerns among Early Years leaders about how they should interpret ‘British’ values in a meaningful way for themselves, the children in their care and their parents, and how Ofsted might judge their interpretations during an inspection. Particular concerns relate to how the terminology used may indicate an exclusive Britishness held as superior to other (and thereby othered) groups, particularly British Muslim families as shown in Miah’s (2015) research, but also other migrants, such as economic migrants from the EU and elsewhere in addition to refugee/asylum seeking families.

Much of the guidance on the implementation of teaching ‘British’ values in ECEC settings makes clear links to the existing statutory framework for settings offering ECEC provision for children aged from birth to five years of age in England. The EYFS (DfE 2017) functions as a mandatory framework, setting out the requirements for ‘Learning and Development’ and ‘Safeguarding and Welfare’. ECEC leaders are advised that ‘British values’ is not an add-on, but rests implicitly within current guidance of the EYFS (Turner 2015; Foundation Years 2017), for example in two of the areas of ‘Learning and Development’, namely Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED) and Understanding the World (UW). One of the Early Learning Goals of the EYFS (DfE 2017, 12) states in the section ‘People and communities’ that the young child should ‘know about similarities and differences between themselves and others, and among families, communities and traditions’. As areas of ‘Learning and Development’, these have changed little in the previous twenty years (See QCA/DfEE 2000).

The concern is that these values are appropriated and promoted within the English context for education as fundamentally ‘British’, yet with minimal debate as to what these values actually denote (Bamber et al. 2018). There is little deeply thoughtful pedagogical reflection or discourse on what these might look like in practice with very young children. This is not simply an issue in the UK, as elsewhere for example in Australia, the implementation of unfamiliar discourse into practice is shown to be problematic, even where the concept is broadly welcomed (Kilderry, Nolan, and Scott 2017).

Assumptions are made throughout the policy and guidance that ECEC leaders, and indeed society in general, fully comprehend the complex, nuanced concepts inherent in the term British values, such as tolerance and democracy. Furedi (2012), writing on tolerance, suggests that this term has become a ‘superficial signifier of acceptance and affirmation’ rather than one that exemplifies a positive regard for various viewpoints, opposing beliefs and rigorous debate. This crucial concept is reduced to a vapid, simplistic and reductionist understanding that does not lend itself well to the creation of foundations of higher order thinking. Erikson (2018, 12) in discussing Nordic ECEC suggests three types of democracy, each of which has limitations, such as ‘the tyranny of the majority’ for democracy based on majority, which gives the onus for decisions to be made solely on majority vote. However, this deeply nuanced understanding of democracy and how it influences social life, or the Nordic emphasis on ‘lived democracy’ (Einarsdóttir et al. 2015, 104) whereby practitioners engage with children in participating in governance activities, are not common themes within English ECEC. In the Nordic context the emphasis lies on enabling children to understand basic concepts rather than requiring or assuming at practitioner level complex theoretical knowledge of the diverse elements of how democracy functions in practice.

ECEC policy in England

The Early Years Foundation Stage statutory framework (EYFS) (DfE 2017) is the key document that outlines how ECEC settings are expected to operate by the DfE. It uses the terminology of ‘standards’ to indicate expectations of learning and care provided for the age range of birth to five in ECEC institutions, such as day nurseries. One key aspect highlighted in the document is:

Thus, a productive reciprocal partnership with parents is expected in order to achieve the aim of enabling all children to reach their potential. Yet, from the ECEC settings perspectives, the language used by the DfE throughout the EYFS may be viewed as coercive and instructional (Renkema and Schubert 2018). That certain obligations are set out by child protection and anti-radicalisation policy is heavily emphasised, as illustrated by the section 3.7 (DfE 2017, 17) below:

The signifier must as a modal verb indicates present or future action, acting as an imperative as to what needs to be achieved and evidenced. The ‘have regard’, however, is open to interpretation: ECEC settings are accountable for this but responsible for developing their own policies and practices on how to do this. This reflects that it is open to external agents’ public evaluation (namely, Ofsted) as to how effectively it is achieved in practice. A footnote for section 3.7 above explains:

The need to prevent radicalisation and, thereby, terrorism legitimises this requirement as an essential part of the role of ECEC leaders (Lander 2016), and appeals to moral convictions as to the worth of reducing potential damage to society by identifying young children at risk of being radicalised (van Robson 2018). Thus the securitisation of young children begins in the ECEC setting. That this also has implications for parents and their relationship with the ECEC workforce is not acknowledged within the policy.

Evidence of the teaching of British values have been positioned as central to good or outstanding practice and leadership praxis in terms of Ofsted judgments. Thus power is exercised by external agencies to legitimise and shape institutional practices, which comply with policy directives (Renkema and Schubert 2018). The opinions of ECEC leaders feature little in these judgments of quality leadership (Hordern 2016).

Implementing the Prevent Duty in the early years

The article now turns to a case study of the experiences of leaders in ECEC settings in one Local Authority (LA) in Northern England. The case study investigates the perceptions of two focus groups of five ECEC leaders into their implementation of the requirements of the documentation above. A follow-up in-depth semi-structured interview with two ECEC leaders was also carried out in order to explore concerns expressed within the focus group with regard to two specific examples of particular problematic situations. Both of these involved families with young children, who felt they were being positioned as ‘insider-outsider’ citizen (Lander 2016, 275) in England, living within a community yet not regarded as full citizens of equal worth.

Methodology

This research took a case study approach to elucidate decisions, how they were taken and implemented and the results of this (Yin 2018). As a contemporary phenomenon in a real world context, the Prevent duty (and British values) has a direct impact on the everyday life of the early years setting. The translation of this directive into actual experiences for both early years leaders and the families whose children attend the setting formed the basis of the research. It is limited to a geographical and functional area within one local authority in the UK and seeks to identify potential for generalising findings to other incidents of policy impact rather than creating a notion that these insights are only valid in this time and space (Yin 2018). This is but one example of a plethora of educational directives aimed at producing societal change, both in the UK and elsewhere.

The data arises from two types of hermeneutic phenomenological interviews (Savin-Baden and Major 2013). The first consisted of two focus groups of ECEC leaders (EYLs) (five EYLs in each), lasting 30 minutes each, and the second was an informal in-depth follow-up interview (lasting 50 minutes) with two leaders, who wished to continue with the discussion. The topic was of interest to both interviewer and interviewees and this was made clear at the outset.

Both types of interview are expressive, in that they convey the speaker’s response to a situation in addition to the emotional basis for this; this was the case in both the focus group’s responses to the policy directive and the follow-up interview concerning particular cases that were of concern to two individual setting leaders. The interviews are unstructured, apart from the initial posing of the question as to the early years leaders’ views on the implementation British values within their setting.

The focus group had a specific intention, that of exploring ECEC leaders’ perspectives on the implementation of the Prevent duty requirements and their personal experiences of this. The follow-up interviews aimed to gather more detailed examples of how parents had responded to the teaching of ‘British’ values in their child’s early years setting. Each of these types of interviews were analysed using thematic analysis to determine which were the key issues identified by the ECEC leaders. Key themes that emerged during both of the focus group interviews were: Lack of consultation on policy; Misinterpretation/lack of understanding of key underpinning concepts of British values; Implications for professional autonomy; Lack of authenticity; and Early Childhood Education and Care ethos. How these emerged in the focus groups are outlined below.

Follow up interview with two early years leaders

The interviews examined in detail two specific family situations (F1 and F2) identified as problematic for the Early Years leaders in the focus group interview. These are elaborated below in relation to the themes that emerged: Negative change in relationships; Explanation and Justification; Ethnicity and cultural values; and Discrimination and marginalization.

Discussion

ECEC provision is subject to the prevailing policy and regulatory frameworks, neither of which are subject to influence from Early Years leaders. Instead these frameworks govern a system within which those who enact policy see themselves as separate from those who create it. This creates a division between policy and practice, so that although settings are obligated to promote ‘British’ values, there is little examination of the potential consequences of this on the families. ECEC provision is used by diverse groups of parents and carers, not only for their children’s benefit but also because it enables them to be economically productive.

The lack of professional autonomy afforded ECEC teachers shows itself keenly in the lack of meaningful consultation on the shaping of Prevent policy in an ECEC context, with only a tenuous link to the EYFS (DfE 2017) as being a commonly held appropriately framed guidance for young children in England. The importance placed on the implementation of ‘British’ values is clear both in the documentation and in the access to CPD opportunities for Early Years leaders. Settings can no longer be deemed outstanding by Ofsted (Ofsted 2018) if they cannot prove that teaching of ‘British’ values permeates all of their provision. This is the case despite the lack of knowledge and understanding of the nuances these values entail, both within the ECEC workforce and wider society in general (Furedi 2012).

This is a problem felt by the ECE leaders as professionals, and this is compounded by the leaders’ experiences of acknowledging parents, whose home culture of not ‘British’, as their child’s first educator. An implied assumption is made by policy that the parent’s values here are not as important as that of the compliant ECEC setting. This was found to be the case for the leaders interviewed in this study. The ECEC leaders felt British values created a barrier between their intention to lead effective practice (as recognised by others, such as Ofsted) in their ECEC setting and the respectful relationships with parents of diverse cultural backgrounds. Instead of the sense of growing mutuality of connections, where parents are regarded as giving their children valuable learning experiences, ECEC leaders were facing negative and unwelcome responses to the promotion of British values, which then impact negatively on interpersonal professional relationships.

The ECEC leaders mourn the loss of positive relationships that they had built over a period of time. They note with regret that economic migrant parents’ pride in their nationality, together with their cultural values, now seemed to be at odds with the provision that their young child attends. Instead, the notion of ‘British’ rather than human rights values has created a barrier between parents and practice, creating for the parents the sense that the host country (England in this instance) holds itself to have superior societal values than other nations or other ethnicities/cultures. The sense of parents as the child’s first educators remains at the level of tokenism (Hart 1992), where this does not appear to include all parents within a multi-cultural Britain of the 21^st century, privileging those who share ethnicity and nationality only with the majority. The benefits of a diverse, multi-cultural and multi-ethnic community are reduced by this as is the promotion of human rights values, shared by almost all nation states.