Search

Just as illness can sometimes heal us, some have speculated an unexpected silver lining of COVID-19 may be an invigoration of a prosocial vision as the 'new normal' necessitates new ways of thinking and doing things differently across society and in preschool. This article explores this and reports survey research completed with preschool practitioners post-lockdown across several locations in England and the USA. This repeated a previous survey we did in 2014 which found notable levels of 'social distancing' -- that is restrictions in social connection between preschool practitioners and children and their parents in poverty. Yet, since 2014 with austerity and then COVID-19, the pressure, and need, for prosocial preschool systems to work flexibly and inclusively with children and families in poverty has never been greater. We report findings from our 2021 survey and raise some concerns in the context of COVID-19 recovery policies emerging across both countries post-lockdown.

Parent-practitioner engagement in the early years has become a key policy in remediating the negative effects of poverty upon children's early educational outcomes. Although this approach is shared across several developed countries, there has been limited attention upon how practitioners think about poverty and their engagement with parents in poverty. Our mixed methods study in England and the USA provides rare evidence addressing these issues. Among our practitioners in both countries 'parent blame' for poverty featured to some extent in the accounts of a majority of practitioners. We also found a relationship between the extent to which our practitioners felt individual parents are culpable for poverty and their reporting of more negative engagement with parents -- particularly in England. We claim this is worthy of further study as a potential threat to the 'child-parent-practitioner triangle' and to remediation of poverty's effects within early educational contexts.

Living in poverty disadvantages young children reducing school readiness. "Pedagogy of listening" can potentially support resilience remediating against poverty's negative effects. Little, though, is known about how early childhood education and care (ECEC) practitioners work with children in poverty and the attainment gap between such children and their peers remains significant within England and the US. This article reports research using a mixed methodology which explored these issues in localities across both these countries. We argue a dominant technocratic model of early years provision in these contexts creates normalisation and diversity reduction. This, and austerity measures, stymie pedagogical space and practice organising out listening to children in poverty. We suggest this may help explain why the attainment gap remains so stubbornly resistant to reduction across these countries.