Early Childhood Care and Education in Ireland: Towards a Rights-Based Policy Approach
Research funded by: Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS), thematic project grants (2006-2007)
Locating Irish ECCE policy within a broad international theoretical and policy context, Early Childhood Care and Education: Towards a Rights Based Policy Approach aims to inform an evolved theoretical and methodological approach to designing rights-based ECCE policies in Ireland.Through four separate, but inter-related research strands, the project aims to:
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Consolidate knowledge and re-evaluate factors driving ECCE policy through desk based research which will consider Irish ECCE policy in terms of international understandings (RP1);
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Comprehensively review policy documents using critical discourse analysis (CDA) since UNCRC ratification to identify and assess evidence of competing and conflicting ideologies (RP2);
- Survey ECCE stakeholders to identify barriers and constraints to developing a rights based child-centred policy (RP3);
- Identify and design a comprehensive over-arching child-centred policy model which will contribute to knowledge base of a rights-based approach to ECCE policy making (RP4).
The Project Team comprises Dr. Noirin Hayes (Principal Investigator), Siobhan Bradley (Associate Investigator, PhD student for RP3), Dr. Ann Marie Halpenny, Bernie O’Donoghue (PhD student for RP1 and RP4) and Rachel Kiersey (PhD student for RP2).