Equality and diversity was the theme of this year's European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA) conference. For the 700-plus delegates from all over the world who descended upon the Palais des Congres of the European Union in Strasbourg in August, discussion and learning was not restricted by traditional perceptions.
'We need to encourage practitioners to look at equality and diversity in its broadest possible sense,' says Professor Christine Pascal from the Centre for Research in Early Childhood (CREC), a charitable trust dedicated to raising the quality of early childhood and family provision in order to enhance the life chances of children. 'In the 21st century, inclusion includes issues of gender, disability and social economic background as well as systemic diversities relating to services, educational practices and professions.'
Professor Pascal has been involved in organising the event annually since its conception in 1990. CREC colleague and co-organiser of the conference, Professor Tony Bertram, feels the event is proving increasingly successful in bringing social issues and their impact on the lives of young children to the fore.
'In the past, early years education has suffered from being too compartmentalised,' says Professor Bertram. 'Professionals from one particular discipline have tended to focus too closely on their own specialist area without taking into account their place within the holistic support service they offer children and families.'
Watch and discuss
As an interdisciplinary event attended by people from health, educational and child development backgrounds, the EECERA conference provides an integrated forum for research, policy and practice.
'We want policymakers and researchers to keep in touch with practitioners and for practitioners to unearth new practice ideas, but also to understand policy and to conduct their own research,' Professor Pascal says.
Staff from the Pen Green Centre in Corby, Northamptonshire, have been coming to the conference for the past seven years, bringing with them practitioners from their local nursery settings. Eddie McKennie from the Pen Green research team explains how, at last year's event, a session on polyvocal ethnography (the branch of anthropology that deals with the scientific description of individual human societies) led them into a project where they used video clips of people's own practice and provision to help deepen understanding of how practitioners best deliver learning.
This year, the Penn Green cohort delivered their own workshop at the conference, examining how these strategies could help practitioners identify, understand and meet the needs of disadvantaged children.
'By actually seeing how children respond to you and how they are interacting under your direction, rather than relying on oral or written feedback, staff get a much clearer picture of the effectiveness of their practice,' says Mr McKennie. 'A lot of what practioners do is very intuitive. Watching and discussing a recording of themselves enables the practitioner to step out of the moment and look objectively at what they are delivering.'
Julie Weiss, manager of Lisson Green Nursery in London, also gained a lot from the conference. She says speaking with researchers has given credence to her practice. 'It makes you realise that you are doing the right thing, the best you can, and that there is evidence to back up what you are delivering,'
She found that many researchers in the conference wanted to pick her brains about how strategies actually work on the ground in a deprived and diverse area. 'They were particularly interested in how we communicate with parents of children for whom English is an additional language,' she says. 'It gave me a great boost that academics were interested in what we were doing as a way of informing their own ideas and research.'
Practitioners as experts
During the three days of the conference, around 650 papers were given - enabling delegates to focus on how every imaginable aspect of early years provision relates to the issues of equality and diversity.
A session on scaffolding helped Julie Weiss reflect on how every child can be extended and that individual characteristics should be seen as a basis for that extension, rather than as barriers to it. Diversity based on the individual child and their family, rather than compartmentalised groups of people with supposedly shared characteristics, manifests itself in the personalised approaches to learning she favours. 'It made me realise we need to be a bit more consistent in building learning experiences from the individual child and involving their interests and preferences in the planning process,' she says.
Mine Conkbayir, senior practice manager for apprentices with the London Early Years Foundation, says the conference helped practitioners overcome the 'fear factor' of mixing with academics. 'The nursery manager who accompanied me this year arrived feeling out of her depth, but left with a sense of confidence that she was doing the right thing, that she did understand and see the relevance of the research being done around the world, and even that she herself could take a symposium next year, if asked.'
Worldwide impact
Delegates came from 68 countries and many were able to enrich their knowledge and understanding by interacting with peers from other parts of the globe.
'It's great to see how strategies used by colleagues overseas are working in tackling the same sort of issues facing us,' says Mine Conkbayir. 'It also enables people to make links with organisations and practitioners overseas, which can be consolidated throughout the year to enrich practice and development.'
Tony Bertram is pleased with how the conference has developed over two decades, and the fact it now reflects that governments worldwide are beginning to focus on the early years.
'In a modern society and in particular with more women in the workplace, governments are increasingly aware of the need to provide support for those who choose to access it,' he says. 'It is no longer acceptable that people should be abandoned to fend for themselves, and what we now need to do is protect the advancements we have made against the effects of the credit crunch and the inevitable cutbacks.'
For Christine Pascal, the EECERA Conference is like an energy drink for the early years world. 'When you are tired and face a long journey, bogged down by the realities of your situation, you occasionally need something to re-energise and enthuse you,' she says.
Next year's 20th anniversary conference is set for CREC's hometown of Birmingham. For UK practitioners the chance to mix with the great and the good of early years provision from across the world will be close at hand.
www.eecera.org/contact.asp.
