Abstract
In the light of the increasing attention that is paid to curriculum issues in early childhood education, the study focuses on recent early childhood curriculum policy in Greece and England. Our particular interest is in identifying the contemporary views on the child, on early childhood institutions and on teachers embedded in the curriculum frameworks of Greece and England. We argue, like others (Oberhuemer 2005; Dahlberg et al. 1999) that the way in which childhood is perceived is deeply embedded in a specific historical, cultural, geographical, economic and political context, in certain sets of societal norms and values. Thus, we are seeking to look critically into discourses on childhood and associated policies, recognising that the relationship between discourse and policy is not linear, but that each influences the other (Woodrow and Press 2007). We consider that curriculum analysis is political in essence and that the curriculum is not a neutral document but a cultural artefact (Duhn 2006).
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Notes
- 1.
A new curriculum, Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), came into force in September 2008. The EYFS, building on CGFS (QCA, 2000), is a single framework for care, learning and development for children in all early years settings from birth to the August after their fifth birthday.
- 2.
According to these descriptions, learning had to be understood in social terms (Dafermou et al., 2006), a conception that enables a critique of the universalistic Piagetian theory.
- 3.
In this case, 104 goals are set out in the respective learning areas (MoE, 2002) in comparison with the 68 founded in the respective English curriculum document. It is interesting to note that the Swedish curriculum framework has only 24 goals and comprises 15 pages.
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Sofou, E. (2010). Recent Trends in Early Childhood Curriculum: The Case of Greek and English National Curricula. In: Mattheou, D. (eds) Changing Educational Landscapes. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8534-4_13
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