Chapter 8: Promoting Staff and Children’S Learning: Two Sides of the Same Coin?

In Norway, most early childhood center (ECC) directors think that their centers primarily support children’s learning through care, play and personal formation. These centers have, to a more moderate extent, tried to promote learning through structured learning activities for children. This tendency was evident in findings from the Management for Learning (MfL) project, which indicate that ECC learning activities for children largely correspond to a “broad perspective on learning,” with moderate elements of structure (cf. Gotvassli & Vannebo, 2016; Lillemyr, 2018). Structured learning activities are typically directed by teachers and are often associated with “school-like” teaching and learning. However, some Norwegian directors are critical of such activities in ECCs or are concerned about their increase (Moen, 2017).