Early Childhood Education in Social and Political Transitions: The Legacy of the Open Society Foundations Step by Step Program

This open access book is about the successes and challenges of the institutions and individuals who transformed early child education in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe (CEE) and Eurasia in response to the political transitions to democracy in the 1990’s. Through new interviews and unpublished reports, the book gives voice to committed practitioners, researchers and policymakers who are developing inspiring services for and with young children and their families, including children who live in very difficult circumstances. They work with children affected by war, refugee families with young children, children who live in poverty, children of minorities, and children with disabilities and developmental delays. The voices of these pedagogues, experts and NGO leaders, who were supported by the Open Society Foundations Early Childhood Program, bring inspiring messages to those in the field of early childhood seeking to promote democratic values and social inclusion. The book traces the extension of programs to Africa and Asia and explores how strategies used to transform early childhood education following the political and social transformations in Europe and Eurasia can inform responsive reforms and innovations in early childhood education today and in the future.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Open Society Foundation (OSF).

Sarah Klaus is Adjunct Assistant Professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Child and Human Development, USA, and an independent Advisor and Consultant to foundations, international agencies and NGOs. Formerly she directed the Early Childhood Program at the Open Society Foundations.

Jan Peeters is a Senior Researcher and Consultant, based in Belgium, working with Innovations in the Early Years and Fair Start Stories, the European Commission and UNICEF, including in Eastern European countries. Formerly, he was a Senior Researcher in the Department of Social Pedagogy and Social Work at Ghent University, Belgium.

Tatjana Vonta, now retired, was Senior Researcher and Head of the Step by Step Centre at the Educational Research Institute, an Associate Professor at the University of Primorska, Slovenia, and provided independent consultancy services to the International Step by Step Association, Open Society Foundations and UNICEF.