Early childhood practices and policies. International perspectives

Discover the sixth session of the seminar “Regards croisés sur la petite enfance” 2024-2025: "Early childhood practices and policies. International perspectives."

The seminar looks at early childhood as a social, historical and cultural construct. Theories and knowledge relating to the conception, birth and development of children are analyzed in terms of their interactions with their environment and gender norms. Against this backdrop, the seminar will explore the boundaries of this age category and address the question of its temporality according to medical, international, anthropological or historical standards.

This presentation begins with the book's ambition to closely link the analysis of ordinary practices in early childhood institutions, with the declensions of LA, LE, LES, policy(ies) in this field, by striving to vary the scales of analysis, from the “micro” of interaction situations to the international “macro” level. The international nature of the work suggests a process of “glocalization” (Roudometov, 2021), particularly in terms of the commercialization of early childhood education and care, social investment programs and relationships with the “natural” environment. Some of the contributions in this book also reveal the territorial variations of a national policy, or the political choices that have become sedimented within professional practices, for example in terms of categorizing children. Ultimately, the book invites us to consider the place and role of researchers in the transformations taking place in this field.

• Pascale Garnier: sociologist, Professor of Education and Training, member of the Experice laboratory, Sorbonne Paris Nord University. (Face-to-face at Maison Suger)
• Florence Pirard: professor of Education, member of the RUCHE research unit (Research Unit for a Life-course perspective on Health and education) at the University of Liège. (Abroad by videoconference)
• Discussant : Michel Christian : historian at University of Genève