PAPER 6

National Curriculum for Socially Endangered Children in Day-care
 - a means to enhance their life chances?

By Bente Jensen, Associate Professor, Project Manager, Department of Learning, DPU, University of Aarhus, Denmark, Kirsten E. Petersen, Clinical Psychologist &
Jakob Haahr-Pedersen, Research Assistant, Department of Learning, DPU, University of Aarhus, Denmark.
45 pages * ISBN 978-87-7684-237-6 * Published: 2008

Abstract
This paper is the sixth in the series of fourteen electronic publications about the Danish research project "Action competences in pedagogical work with socially endangered children and youths - effort and effect" (The ASP-project). 

The authors discuss how the legislative basis of Early Childhood Education (ECE) can contribute as a methodological basis for improving socially endangered children's life chances through learning and competence development. With the adoption of the legislation concerning the pedagogical curriculum (The National Curriculum, Ministry of Social Affairs, 2004), the professionals were given the possibility to systematically plan and reflect on issues that are legislatively perceived to be central to all children.
    The paper examines whether the legislation on national curricula may be implemented so as to enable the institutions to create new opportunities in the pedagogical effort. The paper thus questions whether this work can improve children's learning and provide endangered children with increased possibilities for immediate success among their peers as well as later in life or whether we risk, at best, that the efforts do not affect or include socially endangered children or, at worst, turn out to be yet another mechanism of exclusion.
   The initial and conclusive phase of evaluating the work with pedagogical curricula indicates little likelihood that the efforts have a positive effect (Eva 2008). Moreover, it appears that a number of barriers have prevented the intended implementation of pedagogical curricula as a contribution to the learning and competence development of socially endangered children. On the basis of previous studies, it is clear that the understanding of the problem and the outlook on efforts in a learning context are closely related to the underlying philosophy of the daily pedagogical practice. It appears more successful to apply an innovation approach to learning than adopting a compensation perspective which centers on the children's deficiencies (Jensen 2005).

The paper concludes that if the curriculum is to have a positive effect on socially endangered children, the work must pay attention to the underlying definitions of socially endangered children, learning perspectives and the problems of social in- and exclusion. From this perspective, a pedagogical curriculum must hold both visions and concrete objectives for the practiced pedagogy as a method to see the individual child's position in her/his learning process regarding interest, involvement and optimal interplay between the child's experiences and opportunities.

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