Promoting global ECD top‐down and bottom‐up

Early childhood science and intervention (ECSI) or simply early childhood development (ECD) is now a multi‐billion‐dollar industry that seeks to export one form of family model, parenting practices, and perspective of child development to the rest of the world. This practice occurs through the effor...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEthos (Berkeley, Calif.) Vol. 51; no. 3; pp. 321 - 325
Main Author Oppong, Seth
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Berkeley Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.09.2023
Subjects
Academic staff
Child development
Childhood
Children
early childhood development
early childhood science and intervention
Global South
Parents & parenting
Poverty
WEIRD
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Summary:Early childhood science and intervention (ECSI) or simply early childhood development (ECD) is now a multi‐billion‐dollar industry that seeks to export one form of family model, parenting practices, and perspective of child development to the rest of the world. This practice occurs through the efforts of agencies such as the World Health Organization, United Nations Children's Fund, the World Bank Group, and the LEGO Foundation. As a result, Gabriel Scheidecker and colleagues (2023) are justified to characterize ECSI as global ECD that seeks to improve the brains of children in the majority world to break the vicious cycle of poverty. I complement Scheidecker et al.’s (2023) arguments by highlighting a key link that sustains global ECD—the academics and practitioners from the majority world who, knowingly or unknowingly, perpetuate this practice. In this commentary, I discuss why and how such academics and practitioners contribute to the practice of global ECD.
ISSN:0091-2131
1548-1352
DOI:10.1111/etho.12393