Schoolification of Early Childhood Education in Chile: Agreements among Actors in the Field on its Definition, Causes and Proposals

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31619/caledu.n54.953

Keywords:

early childhood education, schoolification, school readiness, early childhood pedagogy

Abstract

This article presents findings from a research aimed at identifying the main consensus on the definition, causes and proposals on the schoolification of early childhood education in Chile, according to the vision of actors in the field. Relying on an exploratory and qualitative design, data was gathered through individual interviews to both current and former national governmental authorities, as well as to principals, pedagogical leaders and early childhood teachers (N = 43) from 5 early childhood centers and 5 schools, selected for convenience, all of them publicly funded, and encompassing classrooms for, 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds" classrooms. Having conducted content analysis and data triangulation, findings show that these three groups of actors defined the schoolification of early childhood education as a pedagogical phenomenon, which affects mostly 4- and 5-year -olds" classrooms, valuing it negatively. Identifying as causes a number of cultural elements and structural factors of quality, they proposed measures of public policy to revert this trend

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Published

2021-07-30