th 29 EECERA ANNUAL CONFERENCE Early Years: Making it Count Thessaloniki, Greece th rd 20 – 23 August 2019 ABSTRACT BOOK 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: EECERA 2019 organisers would like to thank the Scientific Committee for their freely given time, diligence and scholarship. Athanasios Gregoriadis, Associate Professor, Faculty of Education, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Domna-Mika Kakana, Professor, Faculty of Education, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Meni Tsitouridou, Professor, Faculty of Education, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Antonis Lenakakis, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Maria Birbilli, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Maria Papandreou, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Maria Pavli-Korres, Associate Professor, Faculty of Education, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Panagiotis Pantidos, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Konstantina Dogani, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Maria Geka, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Kostas Vouyoukas, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Chris Pascal, Director, Centre for Research in Early Childhood, United Kingdom Eleni Loizou, Associate Professor, Department of Education, University of Cyprus, Cyprus Johanna Einarsdóttir, Professor, School of Education, University of Iceland, Iceland CONDITION OF PARTICIPATION: Some abstracts submitted by delegates for participation in EECERA 2019 have been revised and edited in good faith by the Scientific Committee. The organisers cannot be held responsible for the contents of the abstracts published in this book. 2 Contents KEYNOTES 4 SYMPOSIUM SET A 8 SYMPOSIUM SET B 38 SYMPOSIUM SET C 69 SYMPOSIUM SET D 100 SYMPOSIUM SET E 132 SYMPOSIUM SET F 163 SYMPOSIUM SET G 194 POSTER SYMPOSIUM SET I 225 POSTER SYMPOSIUM SET II 243 “PED”agogical TALKS 261 INDEX 268 This Abstract Book has been printed by 3 KEYNOTE I Wednesday 21st August 2019 09:30 – 10:30 MARIA EVANGELOU University of Oxford, United Kingdom Designing early childhood setting-based interventions to enhance home-setting partnerships in challenging circumstances Children’s development takes place within an extensive environmental context that incorporates families, communities, and social, economical and political constraints. Early childhood interventions take place within an interdisciplinary framework of fields. These interventions are often located within a risk and resilience framework, to put in place protective factors intended to build a child’s resilience to adversity. This keynote presentation will use Theory of Change to delineate how early childhood settings can be supported to design and/or implement setting-based interventions to enhance home-setting partnerships. Theory of Change allows the programme developers to describe in detail the rationale behind the development of their intervention, the theoretical framework that underpins their work, and to identify the potential causal links that might be bringing change to the agreed outcomes as a result. This would be especially useful for those colleagues who work with children at risk of underachieving their full potential. This is a topic of great current interest as a number of families and their children are living globally in challenging circumstances. While interventions so far value the contribution of both home and setting on child development, they lack a focus on the interactions that take place within and between homes and settings as these interactions have unique contributions to a child’s development. 4 KEYNOTE II Wednesday 21st August 2019 11:00 – 12:00 JAN PEETERS Centre for Innovation in the Early Years (VBJK), Ghent University, Belgium Measuring the outcomes of young children or analysing the effectiveness of the ECEC systems, what counts most? In the field of ECEC policymakers, practitioners and researchers each have their distinct role to guarantee the quality of ECEC. However, these 3 key players, though united in their aim for quality, seem to speak a different language. At the same time, none of them solely have the full array of knowledge and skills to move effectively towards quality ECEC. To realise sustainable change, policy, research and practice need to be regarded as inextricably linked and need to look together for accountability to invest in high quality ECEC. Together they have to make choices about what form of quality assessment or quality control is appropriate to convince political parties and governments to invest in quality ECEC. In the last decade more and more international organisations and national governments have wanted to evaluate ECEC programs by measuring the child outcomes. But is this always the right choice? Low and middle income countries cannot afford expensive evaluations through measuring children’s outcomes. In other countries, this approach which limits quality to child outcomes does not fit in the pedagogical vision of the practitioners. Can researchers provide alternative methods to evaluate the quality of ECEC for those countries that take into consideration a broader view on quality and that embrace the vision of the practitioners? Are there ways of analysing the whole system of ECEC that are also creating possibilities to compare countries and that do involve practitioners, researchers and policymakers? This key note is a story of a journey through 8 middle income countries, where we discussed with more than 800 practitioners, policymakers and researchers their vision of the quality of the ECEC system in their country. 5 KEYNOTE III Friday 23rd August 2019 13:20 – 14:20 ELIZABETH A. SHUEY Education and Skills Directorate, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Paris, France Improving measurement to enhance services and systems for our youngest children Early childhood is a time of rapid growth, exploration and learning that occurs in the contexts of relationships with others. Young children’s early experiences and the quality of their interactions and relationships varies tremendously across cultures, communities, institutions, families and individuals. For some children, this variation is in support of their individual needs and interests. For other children, the variation in early experiences is inequitable, related to social and economic conditions as well as policy and regulatory contexts. These early differences matter for young children’s well-being and have long-term implications for health, wellness and educational and economic attainment as children grow. Researchers and policymakers bear responsibility for ensuring that knowledge around early childhood education and care is applied in ways that promote equity and support all children. Robust, timely data are essential to inform policy and build best practices. Ongoing efforts at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), specifically the International Early Learning and Child Well-Being Study and the Starting Strong Teaching and Learning International Survey, aim to strengthen research and measurement around young children’s outcomes and their ECEC environments. This keynote presentation will give an overview of the conceptual and research foundations for these new research initiatives, highlighting the opportunities to promote equity in policies, services and systems for our youngest children. 6 KEYNOTE IV Friday 23rd August 2019 14:50 – 15:50 SAMUEL J. MEISELS Buffett Early Childhood Institute, University of Nebraska, United States Assessing young children: What early educators need to know Pressure to demonstrate the effectiveness of early childhood programs and to evaluate young children’s readiness for school are fueling mistaken assumptions about how young children learn and how best to assess their growth and development. The source of much of this pressure comes from policymakers who want to know what kind of impact specific early childhood programs are having on children’s learning and if scarce public funds are being used wisely. In the U.S. these questions have led to the creation of high-stakes testing regimes and accountability standards based on methodologies developed for older students. Using a national testing program designed for Head Start as an example of high-stakes early childhood testing and observational assessment as an alternative, this presentation focuses on the importance of developing context-rich, responsive assessments that reflect children’s complex learning patterns, conform to meaningful standards, and represent valid ways of evaluating children’s learning. 7 Symposium Set A 13:30 – 14:50, Wednesday 21st August 2019 A 1 POLICY INFLUENCES AND DATA IN TIMES OF CHANGE Individual Paper Symposium Chair: Carolina Snaider, Teachers College, Columbia University, United States How think tanks and literacy policies can be used to analyze neoliberal influences on Icelandic preschools Kristin Dýrfjord, University of Akureyri, Iceland The aim is to explore how the Preschool in Iceland has become part of a new political horizon in which national and multinational agencies and think tanks are powerhouses. It explores how players other than preschool-teachers are undermining professional powers and acquiring control. It