01-12-2017
30-01-2020
The Project THRIECE is an Erasmus+ research initiative on Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). This project aims to respond to the current orientation in European Education, opposing neoliberal discourses that prioritise 'valuable' knowledge while devaluing areas not seen to have utility in a global economy. This relentless drive for 'quality' is resulting in the narrowing of curricula, the standardisation of achievement through testing and international ranking, and in a fixation on quantitative measurement as the true arbiter of quality education. We argue that for European educators to understand and meet the needs of young children for a high-quality ECEC, they need to hear an alternative voice to the neoliberal agenda.
This need is particularly important for ECEC as the downward pressure of "accountability" is steadily increasing. For example, Moss et al. (2016) raises concerns about the assumptions, practices and possible effects of the OECD's International Early Learning and Welfare Study, which extends existing international PISA comparisons at the secondary level for the standardized measurement of 5-year-olds. Also the concept of "school readiness" is problematic. It moves the focus from learning through play – vital in developing self-regulation and attentiveness – to a more school-like pedagogy emphasising the development of 'basic skills' and literacy outcomes (Bruckauf & Hayes, 2017), propagating a deficit model, with some children seen as insufficient, "unprepared" for school, without any deconstruction about whether schools are ready for children (Brooker, 2015). Thus, if treated uncritically, measures of 'quality' can become instruments of social reproduction, excluding groups of children and their families based on social class, language and ethnicity – developing a 'one-size-fits-all' approach to quality across Europe is unlikely to be successful, since ECEC varies widely cross-nationally and sub-nationally (Bruckauf & Hayes, 2017).
In addition, the THRIECE partnership – Ireland, Portugal and Poland – believes that this current situation is insufficient if contemporary Europe is to effectively address social inclusion – inclusion is a high priority in Europe and ECEC has been identified as an important vehicle to achieving inclusion for the 508.5 million young people in Europe due the continued mass migration of displaced people, efforts to reduce early school leaving in Europe and increasing challenges faced by educators who negotiate the tension between compliance with standardized indicators and the guarantee of inclusive educational environments.
In this sense, ECEC educators in Europe need support in legitimizing a focus on relationships, intercultural communication and children's right to participation, rather than on test scores; holistic development rather than limited learning outcomes; and inclusion and social and personal recognition, rather than practices that exclude based on ethnicity, social class and gender. They also need practical strategies to implement these concepts in their day-to-day work.
The main objective of the THRIECE project – to build an alternative voice for quality in ECEC and to support inclusion by recognizing the crucial nature of relationships and social interactions – values and processes and is based on three interdependent pillars – a sound ECEC must be 'relational', 'inclusive' and 'holistic':
- Relational ECEC foregrounds relationships and interactions between early childhood educators and children, children and their peers, educators and parents, and settings and their communities;
- Inclusive ECEC values children's cultural, linguistic and social backgrounds;
- Holistic ECEC values 'the thinking and the feeling life' and promotes a vision of children as active, competent, playful learners.
The THRIECE Project is a partnership between 3 countries – Ireland (coordination), Portugal and Poland. Each of these countries is represented by a team of nursery teachers, first cycle teachers and higher education teachers who are responsible for deepening the research and intervention of one of the pillars:
- Relational ECEC – Ireland team
- Inclusive ECEC – Portugal team
- Holistic ECEC – Polish team
The exchange of practices, the creation of tools and resources to improve and measure the quality of educational processes and the dissemination of these results locally, nationally, at European and international level, seeks to promote:
- Links between quality ECEC and a range of social, emotional, behavioural, educational and physical outcomes that contribute to social and social inclusion, supporting "the provision of incentives that encourage participation, strengthen social inclusion and embrace diversity" (EC, 2014 p.9);
- The empowerment of early educators through provision of a conceptual and practice-based toolkit for quality and inclusive ECEC, with the potential to provoke exponential transformative change for European education, through enhancing children's experience of education at a critical stage in their lives.
The THRIECE Project started in December 2017 and has a duration of 26 months.
European Commission, Erasmus+ (Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices, Strategic Partnerships, Strategic Partnerships for school education, Development of Innovation)
Ref. 2017-1-IE01-KA201-025698
MIE-Marino Institute of Education, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland (Coord.)
Carlow Educate Together, Ireland
An Cosán, Ireland
Play Together Childcare Carlow, Ireland
CIIE-FPCEUP, University of Porto, Portugal
Agrupamento de Escolas Soares do Reis, Portugal
Agrupamento de Escolas Alexandre Herculano, Portugal
University of Gdansk, Poland
Centrum Zabawy i Edukacji Zyrafa, Poland
Zespół Szkolno-Przedszkolny nr 3, Poland