Frithjof Grell/Hans-Günther Roßbach
An Introduction
Frithjof Grell
On the (Im-)Possibility of Replacing Preschool Education with Self-Education
The author examines the concept of „self-education“, a starting point of most of the ‘modern? approaches in early childhood pedagogics. On the basis of a historical-systematic reconstruction of the issue of childhood self-education and its treatment by Rousseau, Fröbel and Montessori, recent approaches to self-education are analyzed. Due to the fact that, in contrast to ‚classic‘ elementary pedagogics, they hardly reflect the central question of the ‚first‘ and ‘elementary‘ subjects of early childhood education, these ‚modern‘ approaches to self-education are of little use for an adequate description and treatment of the theoretical and practical tasks of early childhood pedagogics.
Marcus Hasselhorn
Possibilities and Limits of Preschool Education from the Perspective of Developmental Psychology
For several years now, preschool education has again been experiencing a boom. Many of the approaches taken in this context are grounded on arguments pertaining to developmental psychology. The present contribution inquires into the question of which possibilities and limits of preschool education present themselves from the point of view of developmental psychology. Starting from the aims of preschool education, the author discusses indicated and selective approaches of preschool education which have proven to be efficient in the past. All in all, a restrained optimism seems to be appropriate at the moment as far as the possibilities of preschool education are concerned. The limitations are not least due to the fact that, in the field of developmental psychology, the systematic differential research into training is as yet rather underdeveloped.
Nele McElvany/Stephanie Herppich/Roel van Steensel/Jeanne Kurvers
On the Effectiveness of Family Programs of Preschool Education in the Field of Literacy – Results of a meta-analysis
Early childhood conditions are considered important prerequisites of future cognitive and non-cognitive skills. Therefore, great hopes are pinned on systematic preschool education within the context of the family as the most important environment of children prior to their enrollment in school. The present contribution examines the effectiveness of family programs of preschool education in the field of literacy and enquires into the relation between characteristics of the programs or courses of studies and the effectiveness of the measures. The meta-analysis, which takes into account 15 studies carried out between 1990 and 2007, shows only weak effects of existing programs in the field of literacy. Moderator analyses, in particular, point out that higher effects were reported above all in the case of methodologically less strict courses of studies. Possible reasons for the rather low effectiveness of the programs are discussed and desiderata for research in this field are outlined.
Bernhard Kalicki
The Scope of an Educational Partnership between Day Care and Family
Many of the existing educational programs for early childhood sketch the ideal of an educational partnership between early childhood educators and parents, i.e. a specific quality of cooperation which ought to be realized. The author provides a survey on research on parental expectations regarding day care and on the cooperation between day care centers and families. Programmatic statements concerning the influence of educators on family education are discussed against the background of empirical findings which point towards a high fragility of the relation between mother and early childhood educator. For the planning and organization of the cooperation between day care and families it is advised to draw upon Social-psychological theories and to undertake an empirical investigation of the respective attempts at an implementation of specific measures.
Werner Thole
The Pedagogical Staff in Day Care – Professionalism and professionalization in a pedagogical field of work
The contribution reflects and discusses the available knowledge on questions of professionalism and professionalization among pedagogical staff in the fields of action of early childhood pedagogics. The state of empirical knowledge on questions of professionalism and professionalization in institutions of early childhood education is, thus the authors well grounded line of reasoning, despite a few national and international studies, to be considered diffuse, uncertain and, finally, unsatisfactory. Thus, although an academically qualified staff seems to reflect the pedagogical everyday life in a more professionally sound manner and in a more symbolic language compared to pedagogical employees with a degree obtained through vocational training. However, findings implying that a higher educational and academic qualification is proven to promote the quality of the staff’s professional commitment are questioned again by other studies. In summary, it can be said that we are still lacking meaningful, reliable and tenable studies on almost all of the theoretical and political questions regarding this profession. Against the background of this diagnosis, the promotion of research focusing on the pedagogy of early childhood seems highly desirable, in addition to the present concentration on the development of new courses of studies.
Deutscher Bildungsserver
Tips on links relating to the topic of “Early Childhood Education”
Maria Fölling-Albers/Katja Meidenbauer
What do students remember of classroom instruction?
Classroom teaching is subject to the premises of the scholastic system and its different functions – including its selective function. Therefore, lessons can be perceived as important from different perspectives. It is still to a large extend unsettled in teaching research under which aspects students reconstruct previous lessons. The present empirical study investigates this question by looking at different groups of elementary-school students. At three points during the school year (the beginning, the middle and the end), 30 students of the third and fourth grade were interviewed for the duration of one week regarding their perception of the lessons they had attended. The data collected in 420 interviews is analyzed and it is shown that students mainly remember the formal characteristics of lessons; – this is especially true for low achievers.
Petra Bauer
Organizational conditions for case constitution in social work – A review on existing literature
The search for a specific referential system and the related question of what is to be considered a „case“ in social work has long since been an issue in theory formation in social pedagogics. The present article focuses on the analysis of the role played by organizations in processes of case constitution. In a first step, the author reviews important results of existing studies on the form and effect of professional problem definition, diagnosis and the planning of help, on institutional communication in socio-pedagogical settings and on the analysis of different forms of socio-pedagogical organization. Against this background, crucial points of reference for future research in this field are pointed out.
Josef Schrader
Contexts of Reproduction in Further Education
In both the scientific and the public perception, organized further education appears to be a rather heterogeneous area. Its institutional structure is neither easy to define in clear terms nor to grasp systematically. Against this background and following neoinstitutionalist research as well as social-science theories of modernization, the author develops a model that allows categorizing the diversity of organizations of further education in a conceptually consistent, clear-cut and exhaustive manner. This approach starts out from the question of how organizations of further education are able to procure the necessary resources and legitimations. In a final step, the use and limits of this proposal for systematization are discussed for different fields of empirical research on further education and for both the public and the political debate.