A critique of current childcare systems, advocating for a transformative shift towards universal, publicly supported early childhood education and parenting leave.

Written by two leading experts in early childhood education, Early Childhood in the Anglosphere offers a unique comparison of early childhood education and care services and parenting leave across seven high-income Anglophone countries. Peter Moss and Linda Mitchell explore what these systems have in common, including the dominance of childcare services, widespread privatization and marketization, and weak parenting leave. They highlight the substantial failings of these systems and the causes and consequences of these failings. But this book is ultimately about hope, about how these failings might be made good through major changes. In other words, it is about transformation: Why transformation is both necessary and possible at this particular time? What transformation might look like? And how it might happen? Part of that transformation concerns the need for new policies and structures. Furthermore, it is about how the Anglosphere thinks about early childhood.

The authors call for a turn away from speaking of early childhood services as “childcare,” conceptualizing it in terms of business and marketized commodities. Instead, they should be envisaged as a public good with universal access for children, supported by well-paid, individual entitlements to parenting leave. Using examples from the Anglosphere and beyond, the book argues that a transformation of thinking, policies, and structures is desirable and doable.
 

A collection of research and findings from the Thomas Coram Research Unit.

For fifty years, researchers at UCL’s Thomas Coram Research Unit have been undertaking ground-breaking policy-relevant social research. Their main focus has been social issues affecting children, young people, and families and the services provided for them. Social Research for our Times brings together different generations of researchers from the Unit to share some of the most important results of their studies.

Two sections focus on the main findings and conclusions from research into children and children services and on family life, minoritized groups, and gender. A third section is devoted to the innovative methods that have been developed and used to undertake research in these complex areas. Running through the book is a key strategic question: what should be the relationship between research and policy? Or put another way, what does “policy-relevant research” mean? This perennial question has gained new importance in the post-COVID, post-Brexit world that we have entered, making this text a timely intervention for sharing decades of experience. Taking a unique opportunity to reflect on the research context as well as research findings, this book will be of interest to researchers, teachers, students, and those involved in policy-making both in and beyond dedicated research units, and it can be read as a whole or sampled for individual standalone chapters.
 

Early childhood education and care has been a political priority in England since 1997, after a long period of neglect. Public funding has increased, and political parties aim to outbid each other in their offerings to families at each election. Transforming Early Childhood in England argues that, despite this attention, the system of early childhood services remains flawed and dysfunctional. National discourse is dominated by questions of the cost and availability of childcare, while a devalued workforce is characterized by a culture of quantifiable targets and measurement. With such deep-rooted problems, Claire Cameron and Peter Moss argue, early childhood education in England needs more than minor improvements. In the context of austerity measures affecting many young families, transformative change is urgent.
 
Transforming Early Childhood in England offers a critical analysis of the current system and proposes change based on a universal right to education. The book calls for revisions built on democratic principles, where all learning by all children is visible and recognized, educators are trusted and respected, and outcomes-driven targets are replaced. Combining criticism and hope, and drawing on inspiring research, the book is essential reading for students, educators, practitioners, parents, academics, and policymakers.