Understanding Responsible Economic Sustainability in Early Childhood Education and Care

This work package seeks to develop a robust working definition of this concept that is also context-specific. Research questions for Work Package 1 include:

• What is Responsible Economic Sustainability in ECEC?
• What understandings of economic sustainability already exist among ECEC professionals?
  • What are ECEC professionals’ needs and priorities in relation to economic sustainability in ECEC?

The Work Package will use two methodological approaches:

• Scoping review:
  • To map existing knowledge of economy and sustainability in ECEC, to find points of convergence, as well as limitations, in these bodies of work.
  • To inform the development a working definition of Responsible Economic Sustainability in ECEC.
• Semi-structured interviews with ECEC professionals:
  • To understand already existing understandings of economic sustainability among ECEC staff, and what are their needs and priorities in relation to this.
  • To supplement the findings from the literature review with empirical evidence.

This work package will build on findings from Work Package 1 and on Vaghi’s doctoral research on mealtimes in kindergartens, focusing on a particular sphere of activity (food and mealtimes) to understand what responsible economic sustainability in ECEC might look like in practice. Research questions include:

• What do children’s narratives and practices reveal about their existing knowledge about food and economic sustainability?
  • What role do children play in reproducing ‘economic sustainable’ practices, within settings and at home?
• How do knowledge and practice about food and economic sustainability travel between actors (i.e. children and adults) and domains (i.e. institutions, households, the wider community)?

Using a mixed-methods approach, Work Package 2 will include:

• Secondary analysis of pertinent policy documents.
• Ethnographic methods (e.g. participant-observation in one, or more, kindergarten settings, semi-structured interviews with ECEC staff and families).
• Child-centred methods (e.g. photo-elicitation, free drawing activities, role-play).