The home care allowance (HCA) is a form of financial support provided to parents who choose to stay at home and care for their children instead of utilising formal ECEC services (in Finland, this is available to families with a child under three years old). The research studied the effects of the home care allowance subsidy on parents and children. This allowed researchers to assess what impact the allowance had on aspects of the children’s lives as they grew up.
The research found evidence that higher monetary subsidies have the relatively significant effect of increasing the proportion of mothers who stay at home and that this, in turn, has a negative impact on the earnings and employment prospects of mothers in the longer term.
To identify the effect of HCA on the outcomes under review, the study utilised municipal top-ups to the national HCA, where mothers and children in those municipalities were compared to similar mothers and children in municipalities that had not altered their supplementary policies or had not completely introduced supplements. Examining the children in the research data, the researchers found that the impact of HCA was negative; children do less well in early childhood cognitive tests, enrol less often in upper secondary school programmes and commit more crimes in their youth. These last results suggest that the negative effects on children may also have negative earnings implications for them as adults. The results for children also suggest that at least in the Nordic Region, where the alternative to home care is relatively high-quality ECEC, incentivising families to place their children in ECEC from the age of one would be more beneficial than encouraging mothers to stay at home with their children.
6.3 ECEC, integration and language learning
In recent years, there has been a growing awareness of and interest in ECEC´s role in building democracy and how it can contribute to social integration and inclusion.
A Nordic research project was conducted on how Nordic early childhood education and care policies frame values and education in preschools, emphasising the values of democracy, caring and competence (Democracy, Caring and Competence: Values perspectives in ECEC curricula in the Nordic countries). This study focused on how values in the national curriculum serve as a basis for pedagogical practices in the Nordic countries.
The results showed that the Nordic curricula include guidelines for ECEC staff on how to foster an environment based on democratic principles, including caring and competency, in order to encourage children to learn. These are viewed as fundamental values in all Nordic countries.
Significant Nordic research has also been conducted into the importance of early interventions for vulnerable groups and the significance of ECEC services for children and families who have newly arrived in the Nordic countries.
As diversity increases – generally and in ECEC institutions –the Nordic countries must invest and develop the quality of their institutions with a focus on training qualified staff to support the wellbeing, development, care and education of children.
6.3.1 Enhancing language development for dual language learners (DLLs) in Norwegian ECEC
Professor Veslemøy Rydland from the University of Oslo held a presentation about ECEC’s impact on Norwegian preschools, the language development of dual language learners, and the need for professional development models to enhance language outcomes.
As a part of examining ECEC's impact on integration, a project was carried out in Norwegian preschools to encourage multilingual development, native language support and learning Norwegian as a second language. The importance of ECEC staff in fostering both Norwegian language skills and native language support for dual language learners is paramount for the integration and development of young children. Both internationally and in Norway, children’s language learning and educational achievement are related to their socioeconomic and migration backgrounds. There is a need to identify professional development models in ECEC that can improve the content offered to children, the teachers’ interactional styles and the children’s language outcomes.
Two studies focusing on the language development of DLLs in Norway were presented. The first study, known as “The Extend intervention”, investigated DLLs in Norway who participated in a book-based language intervention programme within ECEC. This study documented the main effects on three to five-year-old DLLs’ first- and second-language development. The intervention group showed improvements in second-language vocabulary, grammar skills and the ability to see things in perspective. The home components of the intervention had positive effects on first-language vocabulary skills for words shared in the family’s preferred language, as well as Norwegian. Overall, shared book reading in preschool can support DLLs' second-language learning and first-language vocabulary skills. The second ongoing study, “The Oslo Early Education Study”, was initiated as a researcher-sector partnership to develop, implement and assess the effects of an intervention aimed at assisting multi-ethnic ECEC centres in utilising their potential to support children’s language learning.
6.3.2 Examples of studies of language development and ECEC´s role in Denmark
One Danish study looked at the connections between early language capabilities and learning to read in primary school. The study was based on language assessments of children aged between 16 and 30 months and concluded that the extent of their vocabulary at that age explains between 13% and 25% of the reading skills differences ten years later in 6th grade. The majority of the children who had a smaller vocabulary in earlier years also scored below average in 6th-grade reading. Another study examined children´s language outcomes, not only in Danish but also in English, mathematics and physics/chemistry in the 9th-grade final exams, based on the children’s vocabulary when they were between 16 and 30 months old. Children with an extensive early vocabulary generally performed better in all four subjects, even taking into account a number of social differences, such as parental education and employment and differences in the home learning environment.
A third Danish study represented a large-scale randomised control trial (87 childcare centres and 1,116 infants) designed to improve the quality of instruction in early childhood education (ECE) programmes for infants. The study showed that a low-cost 20-week intervention providing teachers with the time, perspective and supportive tools to improve their interactions with children resulted in medium to large effects on targeted language and maths skills.
6.4 ECEC and supporting children´s development before school age and in the long term
A number of research studies in the Nordic countries have been conducted into universal ECEC services and their significance for children´s learning and educational outcomes both in the short-term and long-term perspective.
A review (Universal Preschool programmes and long-term child outcomes: a systematic review) used natural experiments for children aged zero to six years in universal preschool programmes to assess the outcomes from third grade to adulthood. Comparing universal preschool and taking into consideration differences in parental, family and private modes of care, mixed effects were revealed on test scores relating to health, wellbeing and behaviour. The results indicate that universal preschool programmes positively affect areas related to adequate primary and secondary school progression, years of schooling, highest degree completed, employment and earnings.
A study conducted in Finland asked how Finnish six-year-olds who stay at home before they start school compare in educational outcomes with children who attend public ECEC (Long-term educational outcomes of childcare arrangements in Finland ). The researchers took as outcome variables grade point averages after compulsory schooling at age 15 to 16 and dichotomous variables measuring completion of further education by age 25. The study utilised data from the birth cohort 1987 (N = 4,928). The results show that staying at home before starting school is associated with poorer school performance but not with later completion of further education.
Even though the research results, for the most part, speak to the general benefits of qualitative ECEC, there is also some evidence that school performance is not necessarily dependent on participation in ECEC, such as a study of Finnish children´s PISA 2015 results and whether these children had participated in ECEC or in a preschool class before school start. Similarly, a comparison of five Nordic countries studied the link between ECEC starting age and literacy scores at age 15 and also examined the heterogenous effects according to social background. The article found evidence for the overall benefits of ECEC in the Nordic countries surveyed. However, many of these benefits were largely explained by family background and ECEC enrolment.