Enabling professionals to change practices aimed at tackling social inequality through professional development: results from a case study

The study investigates how the academic development programme ‘Knowledge-Based Efforts for Socially Disadvantaged Children in Day-Care’ (VIDA) can change pedagogical practices in kindergartens so that staff can improve the everyday life of socially disadvantaged children. The research question is: Does the academic development programme VIDA help kindergarten educators to change practices that are aimed at tackling social inequality?

The study shows that the VIDA programme led to a change in pedagogical practices in the intervention group. The researchers saw a shift from the use of experience-based improvised solutions to more reflective and theoretical approaches to situations and activities in kindergartens. This also applied to employees who worked specifically with vulnerable and disadvantaged children. Participation in VIDA led to more exchange of knowledge, collective learning and critical thinking among the educators. These changes also had positive consequences for children’s learning and well-being, as well as the ability of kindergartens to deal with social inequality.

The sample consists of 127 Danish kindergartens from four Danish municipalities. The kindergartens were divided into an intervention group (N = 87) and a control group (N=40). In the intervention group, a manager and an educator from each kindergarten participated in the academic development programme VIDA. Empirical data were collected through qualitative interviews with all the kindergarten managers who participated in the programme, focus group interviews with the kindergarten managers both before and after the programme, as well as observation of a kindergarten from each of the four municipalities that participated in the study, both before and after the VIDA programme was implemented.

Jensen, B. & Brandi, U. (2018). “Enabling professionals to change practices aimed at tackling social inequality through professional development: results from a case study”. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 26(1):50-65.