Journal of Childhood, Education & Society

Re-imagining socialist childhoods: Changing narratives of spatial and temporal (dis)orientations

Eleonora Teszenyi — 2022-11-19

The focus of attention of this special issue has both personal and professional significance for the guest editors and most of the contributors, whose childhoods were touched by either the experience of socialism or its collapse and consequences. Influenced by Foucault’s (1977) idea that reporting evidence and significant moments from the past contributes to histories that are authentic and accurate, this special issue offers insights into the changing narratives of socialist and post-socialist childhoods. We are mindful of the risks associated with revisionism; that is, revisiting and, through that, re-evaluating the past in light of what we know in the present. Mitigating this risk, to some extent, is that many of the authors whose secondary research papers are published in this issue were privileged to work with original documents written in local languages. In this way, they were able to interrogate the past and reveal the nature of discourses and practices in order to make a contribution to better understand the present (Skehill, 2007).

Are you listening to me? Understanding children's rights through Hungarian pedagogic practice

Natalie Canning — 2022-11-19

Hungarian pedagogues agree that children should be listened to, have their rights recognised, and their voices heard. The UNCRC recommends that children’s rights should be part of early childhood education, but this is not typical in Hungarian kindergartens and there is little pedagogical material to support the education of children about their rights. This paper focuses on 5 kindergartens each typically accommodating over 150 children between the ages of 3-6 years old across Hungary. Six pedagogues worked with multi-age groups (4 kindergartens) and same-age groups (2 kindergartens). The research adopted participatory methods to gather children’s views recognising them as valuable collaborators. Children provided insight into their own lives through play based creative activities that focused on eliciting children’s thoughts and feelings. Pedagogues collected video data using a ‘toolkit’ of children’s play activities during a 6-week period of the COVID-19 pandemic. Pedagogues reflected on children’s play through a series of online focus groups with emphasis on how children expressed their views and preferences through play. Participants were encouraged to examine the power relationships between children and adults and analyse their role in knowledge production rather than knowledge extraction. Six themes emerged through thematic analysis, mapped to the 4 guiding principles of children’s rights: participation, survival, development and protection. The findings highlight the juxtaposition between children’s life-as-experienced and life-as-told by adults; the skill of pedagogues to hear and sensitively interpret children’s voices based on their play and the challenge to slow down and reflect on practice.

Social protection of children with disabilities before the change of regime and at present

Emese Balázs-Földi — 2022-11-19

The integration of people with disabilities and the normalisation of their living conditions appear to be a key goal in today’s social approach. However, it is not enough to change the social approach alone in order to achieve integration, we need instruments which are able to support the social participation, self-determination and normalisation of people with disabilities. Such instruments can be defined as follows: a wide range of social welfare support and social services ensured by the state. It is indispensable to help, support and strengthen families which raise a child with disabilities, consequently social policy instruments should be extended to families as well. The present study aims at providing an overview of how children with disabilities and their families were supported during the socialist regime and in the subsequent period. We used a qualitative case study, for the preparation of which secondary research and document analysis were conducted. Our analysis focused on the research question whether following the change of regime there was a change of attitude in the fields of social policy which could promote the improvement of the quality of life of children with disabilities and their families. On the other hand, do the benefits and services provided by the social care system support the integration, normalisation and self-determination of children with disabilities, as well as their upbringing in a family environment? The results of our analysis show that following the change of regime a slow change guided by the modern approach to disability began, which by continuously adding an element at a time attempts to help children with disabilities and their families. A Hungarian disability strategy which would thoroughly define a social policy adapted to the needs of those concerned is badly needed.

Secondary analysis of qualitative data: Hungarian minority kindergarten pedagogues’ perspectives of the new curriculum framework in Serbia

Eva Mikuska — 2022-11-19

Secondary analysis is employed to address new research questions by analysing previously collected data. This paper reports on the secondary analysis of qualitative data where the original research investigated the preschool education reform in Serbia from the perspective of Hungarian ethnic minority kindergarten pedagogues. The choice to apply a secondary analysis fulfilled the aims of (i) investigating traces of socialism in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) provision in Vojvodina, a northern region of Serbia; and (ii) exploring the complexity of Christmas celebrations in nurseries. In order to address the aims, a secondary analysis of 12 semi-structured transcripts was carried out. This analysis revealed important additional findings for the original study. In light of the education reforms in Serbia we found that, first, there are strong connections between the ‘socialist past’ ECEC practices and what these practices may look like in the future; and, second, the traditional celebration of religious holidays outside of church organizations, such as Christmas, may change in the nurseries. This paper also offers insight regarding the importance of secondary analysis which provides an opportunity to making use of existing resources.

The second parent: Ideologies of childhood in Russian pedagogy manuals

Amy Austin Garey — 2022-11-19

The collapse of the Soviet Union saw deep reforms in the educational system and, with the new market economy, in the presuppositions about training and employment that underpinned it. But this article argues that contemporary Russian teacher training materials nonetheless reproduce Soviet understandings about childhood, education, and the state. Comparing discourses about teaching in Russian, Soviet, and American resources for prospective teachers reveals that differences between Russian and American teaching practices stem not from economic differences, but different conceptions of the social purpose of education. Discourse analysis identified patterns in representations of children and teachers in widely-used Russian teacher training textbooks, mainstream American teacher training textbooks, and Soviet pedagogical writings. This analysis revealed that contemporary Russian textbooks, in contrast to their Soviet counterparts, represent the function of education as helping prepare a child to enter society qua capitalist workforce. But the materials differ from American textbooks in their depictions of the responsibilities of teachers, the role of the state, and the rights of children in primary schools. In these respects, Russian textbooks sound much like Soviet ones.

Deinstitutionalisation in Hungarian child protection: Policy and practice changes in historical contexts

Erzsébet Rákó — 2022-11-19

The aim of the study is to present the historical changes in child protection in Hungary and the process of deinstitutionalisation, which is still shaping child protection work in this country. The research seeks to answer the question of how the process of institutionalisation and deinstitutionalisation was implemented in Hungary in the socialist era and after the introduction of Act XXXI of 1997 on the Protection of Children and on the Directorate for Guardianship (Act XXXI of 1997), which was a milestone in the Hungarian child protection for the 0-3-year olds. The study employs a case study methodology with secondary data corpus including legislation and data provided by the Central Statistical Office in Hungary. The scientific approach of the study is mainly historical, presenting the main features of child protection in three distinct periods 1950-1970, 1980-1995 and 1996-2018. The findings indicate that the socialist era has had a prevailing influence on child protection for many decades, but the years following the transition into democracy brought major transformation in child protection, a "transition of the child protection system", paving the way for the process of deinstitutionalisation and the emergence of alternative forms of care.

Relationship between families and kindergartens in Hungary in the 1950s

Yvetta Kóger — 2022-11-19

Partnership working and co-operation between parents and early education and care settings is a widely researched topic worldwide. However, little is known about how the relationship between families and kindergartens developed in the historically significant period of the 1950s in Hungary, which marks the beginnings of socialism and a period of rapid expansion of early childhood education and care. This study aims to explore how the expectations of raising ‘socialist citizens’ was incorporated into educational and policy documents and other written resources relating to kindergarten and family education. Purposive sampling selection identified 80 documents as data sources, which were subjected to qualitative content analysis. Intra-frame coding was done by hand using a combined inductive and deductive approach. Employing a constructivist theoretical lens, the analysis focused on both the manifest and latent content of the selected documents and resulted in seven main themes. The findings confirmed that the ideologically driven policy decisions not only influenced the relationship between families and kindergartens but also legitimised the efforts to build a socialist system of early education through organised collaboration and related propaganda work. This study is significant as it offers a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between kindergartens and families in the ‘50s and with that provides foundations for further analytical work of the socialist pedagogical past.

Boarding schools in transition: A post-socialist analysis of “relevance” as an education policy problem in Mongolia

Caroline Dyer — 2022-11-19

The rural boarding schools that were established in the socialist era to serve children in Mongolia’s herding communities remain integral to national policy for ensuring universal access to formal education. Education policy actors demonstrate commitment to the socialist legacy of the schooled herder child, while at the same posing legitimate questions as to boarding schools’ quality and contemporary relevance. This questioning is framed with reference to a globally-orientated discourse of standards, outcomes measurement and skills for employability. The paper argues from a post-socialist perspective that this orientation forecloses a nuanced, contextualised understanding of “relevance” as a complex educational policy problem. Drawing on policy documents and secondary literature, it develops and applies a post-socialist conceptual framework to explore the temporal and spatial orientations of rural boarding schools and their “relevance”. The analysis evidences multiple, intersecting layers of change which situate the schooled herder child and constitute Mongolia”s “unfinished business of socialism” in education. The paper concludes that the layering revealed in this analysis needs to be more visible to educational policy; and that to resist oversimplifying the complex problem of education”s relevance is an ontological imperative.

The impact of education reform in Romania between 1989-2020 on the regulation and decentralization of early childhood education

Erzsebet Habinyak — 2022-11-19

Romania inherited a tightly controlled and strictly regulated mass education system from socialism, which inevitably has gone through a systematic reform. However, transformation or change of any education system does not take place for its own sake, but it is intended to meet certain social and political challenges and requirements. Therefore, the present study investigates the significant changes that have taken place in early childhood education (ECE) in Romania since the collapse of the Ceausescu regime in 1989. Specifically, the impact of the reform measures on ECE provision is examined in relation to curriculum content and structure. Explanation of how to investigate education have been central to the present research. The analysis of documentary data corpus identified three main themes reflecting the changes that took place: (i) the introduction of education reforms, (ii) the emergence of educational pluralism, (iii) the various iterations of the early childhood curriculum. Findings suggest that decentralisation processes led to the spread of alternative pedagogies in ECE add the findings about curriculum content change our investigation offers a detailed picture of the educational processes of decentralization and the changes it has brought in the early childhood curriculum.