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Implementing children’s rights in early education
Sarah Te One
University of Wellington
RECENT RESEARCH (TE ONE, 2009) investigated perceptions of children’s rights in a New Zealand early childhood care and education service (the Crèche) for under-two-year-olds. Focus group interviews, interviews with teachers, observational field notes, photographs and a researcher’s journal were used to generate data. Findings revealed that perceptions of rights were influenced positively and negatively by physical conditions (place and space), rules, routines and regulations. This paper reports on how the quality of children’s experiences in the Crèche was affected by the organisational and physical environment. These two forces influenced the adults’ perceptions of children’s rights and created some observable tension between professional aspirations to provide for high-quality early childhood education.
Introduction
Aotearoa/New Zealand’s clean green image is a major drawcard for international visitors. Our tourism industry promotes our natural resources and gives the impression of easy access to relatively unspoiled, unpopulated beaches, bush, mountains and rivers. These features lend weight to assumptions that childhood in such a country must be healthier and less complex than elsewhere. However, the reality of a young child’s day-to-day experiences in a suburban early care and education centre tells a different tale. Places and spaces may be shared by teachers and children, but how these are used and experienced differs, and essentially, the underlying issue is one of quality provision of early childhood services. What has this to do with children’s rights? Perceptions of what children’s rights are, and how they are enacted, are influenced by the context of the early childhood service which in turn influences how they are enacted, or reified in practice (Te One, 2009). In other words, early childhood service regulations, the organisational systems in a service, the physical environment, and teachers’ perceptions of children’s rights all exert an influence on children’s experiences.
This paper presents data gathered during field work in one early childhood care and education centre for under-two-year-old children (the Crèche), that was part of a larger study investigating perceptions of young children’s rights in early childhood settings (Te One, 2009). Two questions guided the research:
How do children, teachers, and adults who held a position of responsibility in family/parent-led centres perceive children’s rights in early childhood settings?
How were children’s rights enacted in early childhood settings?
Interpretive, qualitative approaches were used to investigate perceptions of children’s rights in the three case-study early childhood settings.
Data was generated through focus group interviews with adults, individual interviews with adults, conversational interviews with children, and observational field notes and photographs. A researcher journal documented insights and reflective comments. Multiple methods (Denzin, 2001) created possibilities for data to be triangulated, and controlled for bias. A participatory research approach guided this research (Te One, 2007), bounded by explicit ethical guidelines for Victoria University of Wellington’s Human Ethics Committee and the New Zealand Association for Research in Education’s ethical guidelines (NZARE, March 1999). Adult participants were invited by letter and through meetings. The researcher sought informed, voluntary consent from teachers and parents in the parent-run service. A separate information booklet and assent form was prepared for child participants (Te One, 2007, 2009). All names used for children and adults in this paper are pseudonyms.
NVIVO, a qualitative computer software tool, was used in the data analysis. Data was analysed for comparative points of similarity and difference once it had been categorised into broad conceptual themes. An intention was to learn as much as possible about perceptions of children’s rights from three different case studies, and so a level of comparison was inevitable. However, a deliberate decision was made to present each case separately so as to avoid comparisons, and none of the case studies is representative of other services of the same type.
The Crèche case study is used here to reveal tensions between infants’ and toddlers’ rights and teachers’ responsibilities to implement these rights in practice. The Crèche was located in a suburb close to a large industrial site and was one of several early childhood services available to employees and users of the complex. Two supervisors worked full time in the under-one and under-two sections of the Crèche and were responsible for managing 11 full- and part-time staff. While the majority of teachers and the supervisors were trained, not all were. There was a part-time cook and a cleaner. The service was licensed for 23 children: eight under one year old, and 15 under two years old. Users of the Crèche could book in for a minimum of one hour and up to 10 hours a day, five days a week. This meant that there were, in fact, more than 23 children attending the Crèche, because not all children came every day, or for a full day. The service was full to capacity by the time the field work was completed. The early childhood services were owned by the employer, and run by a manager who worked on-site but not with the children.
Enactment of children’s rights to play freely and spontaneously, which in New Zealand Aotearoa includes playing outside, was observably influenced by the ways teachers organised their working day and how they managed daily routines in the Crèche environment. This study highlighted questions about the quality experiences for young children in early childhood education, and, as such, challenges the status of early education for the very young.
High participation rates
Participation rates in early childhood education in New Zealand are high by OECD standards, and in the past decade these statistics reveal rapid growth in full-time enrolments for children under two years old (Education Counts, 2008). Alongside this growth, the previous New Zealand Labour-led coalition government (1999–2008) invested significantly in the early childhood sector to improve quality, increase participation rates, and promote collaboration between providers of services and government agencies. This was in line with a collaboratively developed strategic plan, Nga Huarahi Arataki Pathways to the Future (the Strategic Plan) (Ministry of Education, 2002) to establish the sector as a foundational player in New Zealand’s education system.
The present National Government also agrees that the early childhood sector plays a vital part in a child’s life, and has continued to promote participation in early education but has removed some standard measures of quality (see UNICEF, 2008). For example, teacher registration requirements have been lowered, the centrally funded professional development budget reduced, and Centres of Innovation research cut completely. Changes to requirements for fully qualified staff for under-two-year-olds have been mooted, reducing the desired 100 per cent target by 2012 to 50 per cent, with no timeline in place to achieve the previous target (Te One, 2010).
Throughout the public sector, and in response to the world-wide economic recession, all public spending is assessed fiscally alongside measureable outcomes for children and families. In terms of this paper, the big question concerns the quality of service provided for our youngest citizens. It is very easy to criticise the teachers and the services provided for infants and toddlers, and, as is sometimes evident in public discourses, shift the onus of responsibility for child care onto parents (who choose to have children in the first place). That, I argue, is not a useful way forward. Rather, we need to adopt a strengths-based model in which all players’ roles are understood in the wider political and social context. Stainton Rogers (2004) terms this the ‘quality of life’ discourse which politicises the issues determining social conditions, such as increased demands for full-time care for under-two-year-olds, and shifts the focus from the individual experience, be this an individual family or early childhood service, to the highest level where policy is formed. This model is useful for early childhood where the sector is still not funded adequately despite political rhetoric, and the conditions which underpin the highest quality are not yet assured.
In the political realm, perceptions are that economic responsibility remains supreme, and the experiences of working parents, teachers and very young children remain hidden, and therefore vulnerable to political decision-makers. The social capital gains expected of the sector cannot be achieved without the economic investment. Rather than judge the complex array of decisions faced by the teachers in the Crèche, the sector must consider how we advocate for changes in the policy arena to ensure ongoing improvements in high-quality early childhood education.
Children’s rights and early childhood regulations: The official requirements
The most significant document about children’s rights is the United Nations Convention on the rights of the child (henceforth referred to as the Convention) (Child Rights Information Network, 2007). The Convention outlines minimum standards in the areas of health, welfare and education. State Parties (the governments of countries that have ratified the Convention) are expected to bring domestic laws, policies and practices in line with these standards and principles. As a State Party, New Zealand is expected to promulgate and discuss the rights of children vis-a-vis other rights as defined in similar statements (see, for example, the United Nations Agreements on Human Rights, 1997). The Convention provides an ethical framework for what nations shall and shall not do.
Some articles in the Convention have particular significance for early childhood education. General Comment 7 (United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2005) specifically addressed the rights of young children and as such provides leverage for those working with young children to advocate on their behalf for their rights. In so doing, interpretations of the Convention were reiterated with the early childhood sector in mind. For example, Article 29 states that education, including early childhood education, should be directed to ‘the development of the child’s personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential’ (Child Rights Information Network, 2007, p. 13). Articles 4 and 5 are explicit; they direct States Parties to ‘undertake all appropriate legislative, administrative, and other measures for the implementation of rights … to the maximum extent of their available resources’ (Article 4) and ‘States Parties shall respect the responsibilities, rights and duties of … persons legally responsible for the child, to provide, in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child’ (Article 5).
These articles of the Convention, along with Article 12 which entitles a child to respect for his or her views, combine as a powerful argument to governments for high-quality early childhood education service provision. Another key document is the Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations, 2008 (New Zealand Government, 2009) which, among other things, specifies the current space requirements per child for licensed, teacher-led, early care and education services: 2.5 square metres of indoor space and 5 square metres of outdoor space (see Schedule 4 of the Regulations. There are some variations to this, depending on the numbers of children attending at any one time):
Indoor activity space for all services is calculated by excluding the space occupied by all fittings, fixed equipment, and stored goods and excludes passage ways, toilet facilities, staff rooms, specific sleeping areas for children under 2 years of age, and other areas not available for play.
This paper reports on how the quality of children’s experiences in the Crèche was affected by the organisational and physical environment. These two forces influenced the adults’ perceptions of children’s rights and created some observable tension between professional aspirations to provide for high-quality early childhood education and the reality of working in a sector that has never had quite enough funding for long enough.
Rights and regulations in reality
[It is a] child’s right to know that ‘I have my own space, (talking here as the child) and I can come to Crèche [and] the adults that are there are going to teach them, the children and people around me, [about my] right to space’ (Loretta, Supervisor, Individual interview, Crèche).
Rogoff (2003) defined community in terms of relationships and the cultural practices, developed over time. The Crèche had its own sense of community, based on a combination of professional codes, regulations, rosters and routines, including traditional early childhood activities. Less tangible relationships between the teachers, developed by a shared understanding of the Crèche’s philosophy, tacit knowledge of the parents’ and children’s backgrounds, and the informal learning processes that characterise early childhood education, further bound this community together. The organisational culture of the Crèche created tensions for staff that directly impacted on power relations in the setting and illustrated how these relationships both facilitated and constrained participation rights for children attending the Crèche.
For example, the Crèche was a complex social system. Management was obliged to provide a service for parents and children that complied with Ministry of Education regulations (New Zealand Government, 2009). This was important for funding purposes. The daily roster and routines were constant markers for all the participants. A mix of sorting the roster to meet statutory funding requirements and the flow-on effects for the routines dominated the supervisors’ discussions during the field work. These discussions were compounded by a dramatic increase in the demand for full-time childcare places. The extra numbers of children in attendance exposed the inadequacy of the building, and pressured existing staff, as the following interaction illustrates:
Loretta (supervisor) passes through and Amy (teacher) asks her about her request for leave, which was turned down. Loretta explains that this is not personal but that because there are so many children starting next week, it is just not possible at the moment (Field notes, Day 4, Crèche).
During this time daily routines provided structure for the Crèche. Loretta, one of the supervisors, spoke of the importance of routines, but also of the need for teachers to remain responsive to children:
The routines give children structure, and children thrive on things that they know. When they know that we are going to eat at this time, even though they don’t know that it’s ten o’clock, they associate the fact that it’s … morning tea time, with the fact that we’re all sitting on this carpet singing. When we say, it’s now time for karakia1, they sit down and say karakia. And they know after that it’s morning tea time. … But like I’ve said before, we don’t stick to it like 100%. It’s there as a guideline and there as something that makes the day flow. We still take each child’s needs and wants into consideration (Loretta, Supervisor, Individual interview, Crèche).
Routines were a way to develop shared understanding between the teachers and the children (Rogoff, 1998). Rogoff (2003, p. 80) noted that in communities, ‘(d)ifferent participants have different roles and responsibilities and their relations may be comfortable, or conflictual or oppressive’. Variations between, within and among communities—different views, ideas, practices—form a common link that Rogoff regards as culture in a community. Toddlers in the Crèche community were expected to conform to routines which were essentially a timetable constructed around meals, sleep and play. For infants, however, there was more flexibility, and individual routines were accommodated wherever possible. For example, during Focus Group Interview 1, teachers discussed routines as following the infants’ body clock:
If they need to be breast fed in a couple of hours and they need it when mum isn’t here, we will ring [her] up and tell [her] to pop down. We ask them when they drop them off, How did they feed? Or mum might say, They haven’t had a very good feed – I might ring you in a couple of hours … and they ring up and we say, no Baby isn’t [awake] … well would you like to come back then when we ring … they usually come down (Harriet, Supervisor, Focus Group Interview 1, Crèche).
Teachers relied on the group’s cooperation to facilitate routine requirements, and in this way the routines acted as tools for the teachers to induct the new children into the group. In fact, routines were essential:
Routines mark the day out here. Children in the [toddler section] move as one. It seems to be important to the running of the day that the children conform. If they want to stay in the playroom when it is morning tea time, the teachers strongly encourage them to move through to the kai room.2 Lots of tidying up in the play room is a message to move as well (Researcher Journal, Day 2, Crèche).
It struck me today how the routines support the group to act as a mini community. If the children and teachers didn’t have the routines at the moment, settling the new children might be more stressful. The older children don’t really buddy the new ones, but because they are familiar with the routines, the teachers talk to them about helping the new children. It sort of sustains the idea of a community (Researcher Journal, Day 3, Crèche).
Elements of co-constructed understanding between teachers and children were positioned as ‘part of broader systems of relations in which they have meaning’ (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 53). Examples of co-constructed understandings observed during routine times lent weight to the notion that ‘learning involves the co-construction of identities’ (Benzie, Mavers, Somekh & Cisneros-Cohernour, 2005, p. 182), but to what extent children were included as active participants was questionable. Because there seemed to be very little choice about participating in a routine event, how would children construct their identity as a social actor with positive agency? Over the next few days, as I observed the routines in action, I recorded notes to interrogate the data and ask how notions of active participation are revealed here. In what ways is it feasible and possible for these under-two-year-old children to influence the program? How are they included in collaborative ways as members of this community? These questions were echoed by several other Crèche teachers concerned about the extra pressure caused by the relatively large number of children enrolled to start within a short time frame.3 The rapid increase was perceived as potentially jeopardising teachers’ commitment to building respectful relationships with infants. Philosophically, the Crèche’s senior management supported routines that were responsive and respectful to the individual child, but at times the reality afforded a different picture:
In some ways [the children] don’t have choices … we have a routine, it’s flexible, but there is meal time here, and sleep time here, so on and so on. So in that respect, children can’t just say ‘oh, I’m not feeling that hungry today, I don’t really want to sit at the table for 20 minutes while everybody else eats’. They don’t have a choice [and they have to] follow the group. I think it’s to do with the ratios as well. There isn’t enough staff and there’s too many children to actually [be flexible] and say ‘oh maybe we’ll go through to lunch later’. It really has to work like clockwork (Fiona, Teacher, Individual interview, Crèche).
For the toddlers to act outside of routine arrangements challenged these teachers’ perceptions of needs as rights. Fiona had noted the obvious difference between an ideal, flexible, responsive routine, where children were consulted about their participation (see, for example, Alderson, Hawthorne & Killen, 2005) and the reality which meant children were expected to comply and conform. Fiona also observed that one person’s rights, or one group’s rights, can be at the expense of others’. Fiona’s explanation linked the disparity between the ideal and the reality of structural, management issues. However, raising the issue was perceived by some teachers as potentially damaging to the generally positive relationships between management and staff. As another teacher noted:
You know, [the manager and supervisor] have been here for a long time and we have found it really hard to make changes. It has taken us a year to rearrange the shelving so that children can access materials … (Katrina, Teacher, Individual interview, Crèche).
Decisions made beyond the immediate microsystem the child experiences, for example policy decisions made at a management level, directly influence the child’s conditions of learning (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998). Because the balance of power described by Fiona was firmly controlled by adults, the desired shift towards sharing that power with children was not apparent during routines, and this caused some teachers to reflect on the ramifications of challenging an existing regime. Balancing an individual child’s rights and the rights of all the children in the group (for example, the outbreak of illness) was a constant challenge for teachers. Children’s participation in the routines was almost compulsory. In this context, they were expected to participate as a group. This was compounded by teachers’ distinct reluctance to criticise the regime. Even though Fiona could see that a more flexible approach to routines could enhance children’s agency as participants in their daily experiences, she was aware of the delicate nature of relationships in any small workplace. In addition, she was loyal to the manager of the Crèche, whom she respected, and this meant she was reluctant to raise critical questions.
From the teachers’ perspective, routines ensured that children’s rights were met. However, the balance of power resided with the adults, and shifting that towards the child was problematic. For example, teachers’ breaks were aligned to the children’s routine events such as morning tea, or sleep times, which had been timetabled and then presented as a roster of contact and non-contact hours, morning and afternoon breaks, and lunch times. Several of the teachers in the Crèche acknowledged that this approach potentially compromised children’s rights; even though choices were available, they felt bound by routines and the roster:
We have routines, for the security of the child, because it becomes a familiar time and they know what’s going to happen. But there are times when someone really wanted to continue playing [and it’s time to] go to morning tea. … But that would probably be the only time that you’re taking them away from something – when you’ve got mealtimes and things like that. Which is still there for their needs, but they might have been totally involved in something they were doing (Peggy, Individual interview, Crèche).
Children’s rights to choose to take longer to eat a meal, to continue playing outside or in a different room, were constrained by how the Crèche management and teachers interpreted and implemented regulatory requirements. Respect for the individual toddler’s choices appeared to be influenced by the Crèche’s organisational systems. Routines were designed to meet community needs (parents and children), regulations, and teachers’ entitlements, as the following extract illustrates:
Today I watched as Katrina and Harriet changed shifts. Harriet was feeding Angus (9 months) and they literally changed places in between spoonfuls. Angus appeared totally unconcerned. It is an incredibly busy place and the teachers are flat out – not in a mad rush sort of way, but there is constant activity, either playing with the babies or feeding a baby, or changing a baby or talking to a parent on the phone or … showing a new parent around – the induction process. Plus there is the busyness of going on breaks, coming off breaks and administrative tasks like recording sleep times and nappy changes and feeds and the general observations in the daily diary (Field notes, Day 11, Crèche).
Essentially, the rationale for routines and rosters was aligned to an underlying ‘best interests’ approach to children’s rights (Alston, 1994). Article 3 of the Convention requires that all actions concerning children must consider children’s best interests and, at the same time, take children’s opinions into account (Article 12). In the Crèche, though, infants’ wellbeing, security and health concerns, that is, their protection rights, were to the fore in the minds of the teachers. However, also in the balance were teachers’ entitlements to their conditions of service. Both concerns are related to overarching contributors to quality experiences in early education: qualified teachers are trained to recognise and understand the importance of nurturing children’s wellbeing, and, if this professional expertise is recognised and remunerated accordingly, the potential outcomes for children are increased. Organisational structures and management systems can also influence the quality of children’s experiences in an early childhood service.
The next section describes and discusses the process of settling new children into the Crèche, to illustrate how routines and rosters were observed as both supporting and constraining children’s rights and teachers’ responsibilities to implement them.
This research took place in the Crèche at the beginning of the New Zealand year when there was a dramatic increase in the number of children enrolled. This increase had consequential implications for the small group of children who had been attending through the summer. From a children’s rights perspective, which has to incorporate the ways rights are implemented by those responsible for children, the following observations illustrate how difficult it became for teachers to maintain relationships, let alone build relationships with the children when the group dynamics altered:
Quite a few of the teachers have pointed out to me that they are concerned that the influx of new children next week will have a dramatic impact on the ones who have been coming for a while and are really settled into a ‘routine’ but more than that, the four teachers who have mentioned it have all had questions about how the expectations of the current group of children will not be met when the new ones start because there is just not the time. Those children will just have to manage (Field notes, Day 4, Crèche).
The supervisors were struggling with how to manage the rosters:
Harriet and Loretta (the Supervisors) are constantly talking about who is coming, who is starting and how they are going to manage next week. They met over the weekend to plan the rosters and to organise extra gear (Researcher Journal, Day 6, Crèche).
Further compounding the problem with rosters was the more serious problem of insufficient space. Tensions between three elements, rosters, space and routines, underpinned staff concerns about children’s rights.
The silent voice of the physical space
As is often the case with New Zealand early childhood services, the Crèche was housed in a large family house. The original home would have been impressive but, converted into an early care and education service, it was a challenging physical environment—a silent ‘voice’ that controlled flow and access of all participants.
Two impressions dominated initial reflections on the first day of field work. The first was how access to space was controlled using barrier gates. The second was how only one space at a time was available to the children, which meant large rooms were left unoccupied for much of the day, despite space being at a premium. Free flow between the rooms or to the outside was not observed in the month spent in the Crèche. My journal noted the following:
Why is there so much pressure to put everything away? One explanation has been that because the space is so limited, it quickly becomes chaotic. And one teacher commented that the chaos can upset some parents. From a teacher’s perspective, it might not be that pleasant either. Combining that with the constraints that the teachers feel with their conditions of work makes this an issue when it comes to children’s rights (Researcher Journal, Day 2, Crèche).
The outside area was also challenging. Sloped and on two levels, it was dominated by large retaining walls, and the fact that at ground-level the playground was lower than the building made these walls appear higher. It was a small, suburban-sized backyard, on an eighth of an acre section. Again, my journal noted:
It makes me think about the combined effect of the house itself, with its constraining environment and very small outside area, the numbers of children enrolled at any one hour, the numbers of teachers needed to meet the ratios, the obligations of the employers to the teachers for breaks and non-contact times, not to mention the high professional standards the teachers themselves set regarding their working in partnership with the parents – keeping them informed about what was going on with their child, and the relationships and involvement they have with the children. It is a complex organisational system here (Researcher Journal, Day 6, Crèche).
Access to the outside was a serious issue. It was possible, and the spaces met the required square metre per child allocations, but areas not used by children were included in the calculations. The infants rarely left their allocated space:
I did wonder, were the babies ever taken outside? Not really, Harriet told me, because of the ratios and the fact that the set-up in this old house is not ideal. Harriet was telling me about the breaks and how they inhibited the free flow together with the environment. She very nervously suggested that they breached children’s rights. I thought then, while the adults can have a break and come upstairs, which is roomy and spacious – slightly cluttered and messy in the teachers’ study, it is still a space that they can come to and escape and be on their own for a while. The children aren’t able to do that at all and when I put that to Harriet she did look a bit worried as she acknowledged ‘it was really hard to do. We just don’t have the room’ (Field notes, Day 2, Crèche).
The physical environments were restrictive. Children’s access to areas of play was controlled, presumably to protect them from harm and to ensure adult surveillance. Management cited prescribed adult–child ratios as the reason for moving the whole group of children at the same time. This impacted in several ways. For some teachers, their philosophical beliefs about children’s rights to choose, and the importance of responsive, flexible, routines were undermined by this practice. For example, privacy and uninterrupted time alone was for adults only, and at least half of the teachers mentioned this as an issue for the children who were enrolled for eight hours or more. Peta commented on this during the focus group interview, and in her individual interview:
I am here at the end of day, and Matthew (22 months) is the last one here every day. By about 3.00 o’clock you can just see he’s had enough of the place. He needs some quiet time and I take him down to the [infants’ area] (Peta, Teacher, Individual interview, Crèche).
Some teachers used regulations, rosters and the routines as a rationale to resist changing the way space was used at Crèche. A plausible explanation for this was the unexpected change in attendance patterns witnessed during the field-work phase. Originally, the Crèche had been designed as a service where the majority of children were casual, part-time users; however, bookings in the past year had changed from the usual one to two hours, two or three times a week, to more children enrolled all day, every day:
Harriet and Peggy (teachers) have been here the longest and are talking about how the way parents are using the Crèche has changed, even since last year. They are concerned that the system is being abused which means that the way the Crèche was set up isn’t working anymore. Katrina (teacher) agrees. She thinks it’s because the Crèche is close to town. She starts to tell me about how long the days are for some of the children: ‘they are travelling in the dark to get here and get home in the winter’ (Field notes, Day 4, Crèche).
The restrictive physical spaces had not been so obvious when children were constantly coming and going, but the increased demand for full-time child care had accentuated the need to address the space issue. Both the manager and supervisors were meeting outside work hours to resolve basic resourcing issues, and at the same time maintain their reputation as a quality provider:
Just while the babies are quite settled I peek over into the Sleep Room. Fiona (teacher) is looking worried. ‘I have to fit 16 beds in here today and leave room between them for the teachers to sit. I think we’ll have to move all the equipment out but I don’t know where it will go. The equipment is not the thing that worries me – it is the crowded room’ (Field notes, Day 12, Crèche).
Initially, teachers did not mention the physical surroundings as a children’s rights issue, focusing instead on routines and rosters as the major barriers to implementing rights for children. But the number of new enrolments highlighted awareness of the environment’s limitations, particularly during routine events such as sleep times. Overall, these particular experiences forced the teachers to question children’s rights in early childhood settings.
Conclusion
This paper has discussed how place, space and routines can be interpreted from a rights-based perspective for children, particularly infants and toddlers in the Crèche. An increased demand for full-time child care for infants and toddlers put pressure on teachers and on the environment. The restrictive physical space of the Crèche limited how teachers and children could move. As well, management had to juggle a mix of part-time and full-time teachers, all of whom were entitled to better-than-average conditions of service. Teachers had an office and a staffroom to retreat to; children had no such luxury. This raises questions about the adequacy of space allocations in the Early Childhood Regulations (New Zealand Government, 2009). What counts as overcrowding? The Crèche was a converted, four-bedroom house shared by 23 under-two-year-old children and between eight and 10 adults at any one time. Expected to conform to routines and rosters, the children were constrained, but so were the teachers. Even though the teachers wanted responsive, flexible routines, this was difficult to achieve because of the roster, and because of the covert power the environment held over those using the space. The principle that children, even very young children, have a right to be consulted was compromised by the combined effects of rules and usable spaces.
The difficult physical environment had a major impact on highlighting a difference between the teachers’ perceptions of children’s rights and how these were enacted in reality. Teachers struggled to align their perceptions of rights with their values, and with the constraints imposed by regulations and the environment. As the demand for longer hours of child care increased, so too did an awareness that the structural alterations to the original suburban family home were not necessarily adequate. In the main, the teachers bore the brunt of concern about these impacts, and their struggles were isolated, not only by their physical location but also because these issues were regarded by them as specifically related to their circumstances.
This is where a quality of life, rights-based approach could support them as advocates for children—to their management, who were aware of the constraints, to their professional organisations, and ultimately to policy advisers and policy-makers. Should the responsibility for raising the issues rest with those most closely affected by them, or can research support government policy to improve the physical and social conditions children experience? Policy requirements and their effects on the teachers in the Crèche exemplified how decisions made in a wider, more remote setting affected the immediate setting in which the child participated (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998). This research recommends that children’s rights principles be taken into consideration for future policy development. The silent voice of the environment needs to be aired to enable children in child care to experience the best New Zealand can offer: free and ready access to the outdoors, and inside spaces where children and the teachers responsible for their care and education can participate meaningfully in their early childhood education communities. That will enhance the quality of early educational experiences for young children.
Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges the teachers and children of the Crèche for their willingness to be part of this research. Grateful thanks also to Dr Rob Strathdee and Associate Professor Val Podmore for their guidance and support.
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1 Ma-ori blessing or prayer
2 Kai means food in Ma-ori, and so Kai room meant dining room
3 The roll for the toddlers’ section more than doubled within two weeks, from seven to 16 new children (Te One, 2009).
Australasian Journal of Early Childhood – Volume 36 No 4 December 2011
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