The development of culturally inclusive policy in Dutch early childhood education and care

Abstract

As the Netherlands has become a multicultural country, discussions about cultural diversity have become increasingly important. However, with the rise of extreme right political parties, it has also become an increasingly controversial topic, especially in rural environments. Early childhood education and care (ECEC) has been shown to be important for children with a migrant background to encourage integration and close early achievement gaps. However, because of the Dutch ECEC system hybridity, overall quality and attention to cultural diversity differs per organization. Findings indicated that social organizations were more accommodation to cultural differences than commercial organizations. The current study used multiple ANOVA analyses to examine the development of culturally inclusive policy in Dutch ECEC over time, while taking into account the factors organization structure, urbanity and group composition. Data from the National Daycare Quality Monitor project was used. Results showed a significant upwards trend in culturally diverse policy in ECEC organizations. Urban organizations also showed significantly more culturally diverse policy then rural locations, this effect was stable over time. Organizations with more culturally diverse children, showed more culturally diverse policy. However, there was no effect found of organization type. Findings relate to overall national trends except the findings related to organization type. This discrepancy in findings between earlier studies and the current studies might be explained by differences in variable construction. The current study was also subject to missing data, which might have decreased the power of analyses.