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1 – 10 of over 181000This article analyses UK Early Years policy in terms of service expansion and service transformation since the Labour Government's election in 1997. Childcare is now a matter of…
Abstract
This article analyses UK Early Years policy in terms of service expansion and service transformation since the Labour Government's election in 1997. Childcare is now a matter of public policy, driven largely by concerns about child poverty and inequalities in children's life chances. The evidence is considered, first, on service expansion, increased take‐up and increased employment by parents with young children, and, second, on service transformation and child outcomes: to what extent have changes benefited disadvantaged children, families and neighbourhoods? The Effective Provision of Preschool Education (EPPE) research shows that pre‐school can boost disadvantaged children's intellectual development in particular, and the article concludes that programmes such as Sure Start and Neighbourhood Nurseries have been successfully targeted at the most disadvantaged areas, although better‐off families and neighbourhoods may have benefited even more, and that problems of cost and sustainability remain. It is too early to judge whether better integrated services now being developed will be successful in transforming the lives of the most disadvantaged children.
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Ann Mooney, Janet Boddy, June Statham and Ian Warwick
The purpose of the paper is to consider the opportunities and difficulties in developing health‐promotion work in early years settings in the UK.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to consider the opportunities and difficulties in developing health‐promotion work in early years settings in the UK.
Design/methodology/approach
As the first study of its kind conducted in the UK, a multi‐method approach was adopted involving: an overview of health‐related guidance and of effective interventions in early years settings to promote health among young children; 26 interviews with key informants in the early years and health fields, regional coordinators for the National Healthy Schools Programme (NHSP) and Foundation Stage regional advisers; a survey of 145 local Healthy Schools Programme coordinators with a response rate of 75 per cent; and six case studies of early years settings representing promising practice in the promotion of health and wellbeing.
Findings
There is considerable enthusiasm for health promotion work within early years organisations, and interest in developing such work in early years settings. The study suggests that building on existing early years curriculum frameworks, developing partnerships between health and early years professionals, engaging both parents and practitioners, and adequate national and local resourcing will facilitate development of health promoting work in the early years sector.
Practical implications
This paper and the outputs from the study offer useful evidence for health and early years professionals who are developing health‐promoting work in early years settings.
Originality/value
The paper reports on the first study of its kind in which the perceptions of both early years and health professionals are brought together to consider the issues involved in developing healthy early years practice.
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Early years policy and services have been subjected to substantial and rapid reform over the past 20 years. This article provides a brief overview of legislative and policy…
Abstract
Early years policy and services have been subjected to substantial and rapid reform over the past 20 years. This article provides a brief overview of legislative and policy changes over this period, with a particular focus on regulation and workforce issues, and traces the enduring influence of the Children Act 1989 to the present. It identifies a paradigm shift in early years services from a world view based on public health and care and on devolution of responsibility, to one in which promoting children's learning and development is core and centralised regulation and national standards are seen as essential. This is reflected in changed responsibilities at government department and regulatory body level. Despite these major changes, the article concludes that the key principles of the Act ‐ in terms of children's rights, parents' responsibilities, listening to children and inter‐agency co‐operation ‐ are still apparent.
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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the individual and interaction effects of chief executive officers (CEO)-chairman leadership structure (CEO duality) and CEO-serviced…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the individual and interaction effects of chief executive officers (CEO)-chairman leadership structure (CEO duality) and CEO-serviced early years (the first three years in office) on real earnings management (REM) through sales activities of listed firms in the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET).
Design/methodology/approach
The longitudinal data on CEO and chairman names of 3,825 firm-year observations were manually gleaned from the SET market analysis and reporting tool and the annual reports from 2001 to 2015. Multiple regressions were utilized to analyze the effects.
Findings
The findings show a positive relationship between CEO duality and sales-driven REM. However, the CEO-serviced early years have no association with sales-driven REM. The CEO duality/serviced early year interaction effect is positively correlated to sales manipulation. In addition, firms with the CEO duality engage in upward or downward sales-driven REM, while firms with newly appointed CEO adopt only the upward sales-driven REM. In firms which their newly appointed CEO concurrently serves as chairman, either upward or downward sales-driven REM strategy is introduced.
Practical implications
The findings provide some grounds for capital market and regulators to exercise caution when it comes to firms with the newly appointed CEO and/or the CEO duality, given a high tendency to manipulate sales revenues.
Originality/value
This study is the first to investigate the relationship between the CEO duality/serviced early years on sales-driven REM. The findings are expected to complement existing publications on REM.
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The paper discusses the “narrative practices” utilised by women leading in a small sample of Early Years services in the North East of England. These Early Years settings are…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper discusses the “narrative practices” utilised by women leading in a small sample of Early Years services in the North East of England. These Early Years settings are presented as an alternative site for studying women's experiences of leadership. It examines the way in which these women use narrative strategies and approaches to work in collaborative, community based services for young children and their families.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is drawn from a larger study into narratives of professional identity and their relation to interactional contexts. The study follows an interpretive paradigm, and used narrative and participative methodology and methods to work with a small number of participants purposively sampled from cohorts of the National Professional Qualification in Integrated Centre Leadership (NPQICL). Participants were involved in reflective conversations about their leadership supported by interactive, visual methods in five extended sessions over the course of twelve months. Data from the larger study which related to the theme of “narrative practices” was subsequently coded and interpreted to inform this study.
Findings
Data coded as “narrative practices” led to the establishment of three high level categories of narrative practice found in the study. These are summarised in the metaphors of “tent making” (creating and using symbolic and narrative space with others), “skilled dancing” (improvising, and remembering with others) and “orchestration” (reflexive attuning). Data suggests that women involved in the study drew on their experience and values to develop sophisticated narrative practices that were particularly adaptive, ethically sensitive and sustainable – often in spite of “official” masculine leadership cultures.
Research limitations/implications
This specific study only draws on narrative accounts of three women leaders in Early Years services and as such is not intended to generate generalizable theory. The intention of the study is to conceptualise women's leadership as narrative practice, and in so doing to direct further study into these practices as aspects of effective leadership.
Practical implications
The study develops new ways of conceptualising and interpreting women's leadership practices and opens up opportunities for further study in this field. Access to this material also provides individuals (including women leading in UK Early Years services) and opportunity for reflection on their own leadership practice.
Originality/value
This study is unique in using a form of highly participative, reflective methodology to consider women's use of narrative in leadership interactions in the UK Early Years sector. The study is the first in this sector to look at this specific topic using aspects of Ricoeur's (1984) narrative hermeneutics and in so doing generates new questions about women's narrative practices.
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“All things are in a constant state of change”, said Heraclitus of Ephesus. The waters if a river are for ever changing yet the river endures. Every particle of matter is in…
Abstract
“All things are in a constant state of change”, said Heraclitus of Ephesus. The waters if a river are for ever changing yet the river endures. Every particle of matter is in continual movement. All death is birth in a new form, all birth the death of the previous form. The seasons come and go. The myth of our own John Barleycorn, buried in the ground, yet resurrected in the Spring, has close parallels with the fertility rites of Greece and the Near East such as those of Hyacinthas, Hylas, Adonis and Dionysus, of Osiris the Egyptian deity, and Mondamin the Red Indian maize‐god. Indeed, the ritual and myth of Attis, born of a virgin, killed and resurrected on the third day, undoubtedly had a strong influence on Christianity.
Three events of significance to this country took place in 1899 – the British Food Journal was launched, Australia retained the Ashes, and the Boer War hostilities commenced. If…
Abstract
Three events of significance to this country took place in 1899 – the British Food Journal was launched, Australia retained the Ashes, and the Boer War hostilities commenced. If challenged on the order of their importance, cricketers and Empire‐builders may be excused their preference. However, looking at it purely from the standpoint of pro bono publico, the dispassionate observer must surely opt for the birth of a certain publication as being ultimately the most beneficial of the three.
THE Reference Department of Paisley Central Library today occupies the room which was the original Public Library built in 1870 and opened to the public in April 1871. Since that…
Abstract
THE Reference Department of Paisley Central Library today occupies the room which was the original Public Library built in 1870 and opened to the public in April 1871. Since that date two extensions to the building have taken place. The first, in 1882, provided a separate room for both Reference and Lending libraries; the second, opened in 1938, provided a new Children's Department. Together with the original cost of the building, these extensions were entirely financed by Sir Peter Coats, James Coats of Auchendrane and Daniel Coats respectively. The people of Paisley indeed owe much to this one family, whose generosity was great. They not only provided the capital required but continued to donate many useful and often extremely valuable works of reference over the many years that followed. In 1975 Paisley Library was incorporated in the new Renfrew District library service.
The object of this research is the reconstruction of the existing legal response by European Union states to the phenomenon of immigration. It seeks to analyse the process of…
Abstract
Purpose
The object of this research is the reconstruction of the existing legal response by European Union states to the phenomenon of immigration. It seeks to analyse the process of conferral of protection.
Design/methodology/approach
One main dimension is selected and discussed: the case law of the national courts. The study focuses on the legal status of immigrants resulting from the intervention of these national courts.
Findings
The research shows that although the courts have conferred an increasing protection on immigrants, this has not challenged the fundamental principle of the sovereignty of the states to decide, according to their discretionary prerogatives, which immigrants are allowed to enter and stay in their territories. Notwithstanding the differences in the general constitutional and legal structures, the research also shows that the courts of the three countries considered – France, Germany and Spain – have progressively moved towards converging solutions in protecting immigrants.
Originality/value
The research contributes to a better understanding of the different legal orders analysed.
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