Policies in early childhood education and care: potentialities for agency, play and learning.

Abstract

In recent years the institutionalization of childhood has accelerated dramatically, resulting in the rapid expansion of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). Consequently, as lifelong learning increasingly begins with the very young, ECEC is moving with comparable speed up the policy agenda of nation states, as well as within different international organizations, including the European Commission, the OECD, the World Bank and UNESCO.