Förskolan, barnen och framtiden.

The overall purpose of this study is to contribute to and inform public debate on the extent to which Swedish children benefit from attending an ECEC centre. On the basis of the debate, the study seeks to survey and present relevant Nordic studies investigating the effect of ECEC centres on children’s welfare and development, using a number of set criteria.

Based on the results of the survey, the author concludes that, given the way ECEC centres are designed in the Nordic countries, they seem to have overall positive effects on children. In the author’s opinion, the positive effects of ECEC centres can possibly be explained by the staff density and proportion of ECEC teachers at Nordic ECEC centres, both of which are high in an international perspective.

The study shows that in the category ‘effect of ECEC centres on children’s cognitive abilities, achievement at school and duration of school attendance’ a total of six studies were found, all of which show positive effects of ECEC centres. Some of these studies find that ECEC centres have clearer positive effects on girls, and on children of parents with short-cycle education or low income. Two studies were included in the category ‘effects on income level at adult age’, and both of these studies show positive effects of ECEC centres. Furthermore, the author found four studies analysing ‘effects of ECEC centres on the occurrence of mental health problems’. None of these studies find any guaranteed effect of the ECEC centre — neither positive, nor negative. However, one study shows that ECEC attendance reduces the occurrence of behavioural problems among boys of low-educated parents. The survey also shows that only one study analyses the ‘correlation between the design of the ECEC centre and the child’s achievement at school at the age of 16’. This study suggests that a higher proportion of male staff and staff with formal pedagogical education at the ECEC centre benefits children’s achievement at school.

Finally, the survey shows that 11 of the 13 references included in the study concern analyses of natural experiments, whereas two are cohort studies. All the studies were carried out in Denmark and Norway, and most studies were conducted by economists.

The author searched for relevant studies, i.e. studies examining the effect of ECEC centres on children’s welfare and development, in the Google Scholar and PubMed databases. The search was limited to studies published in the period 2005-2015. The relevance criteria were that the studies had been carried out in a Nordic country, that they reported original data, that they were designed as natural experiments or cohort studies with specific focus on the effect of ECEC centres on children’s welfare and development, and finally, that the studies controlled for background factors potentially affecting the results of the study, for instance parents’ education and income level. A total of 13 relevant references were included in the further analysis process, in which the studies were categorised and structured under the following four main topics: (1) the effect of ECEC centres on children’s cognitive abilities, achievement at school and duration of school attendance, (2) effects on income level at adult age, (3) effects of ECEC centres on the occurrence of mental health problems, e.g. behavioural and emotional problems, and (4) correlation between the design of the ECEC centre and the child’s achievement at school at the age of 16.

Bremberg, S. (2015). Förskolan, barnen och framtiden. Tankeverksamheten inom Arbetarrörelsen i Göteborg.