위에서 아래로의 유아교육 질 향상에 대한 우려: 영국유아교육개혁의 교훈

초록

This study aims to investigate recent changes in British early childhood education, shifting from the localized voluntary educational tradition to the increased national control, since the 1980s driven by Thatcher administration. From this, we hope to glean the implications for the improvement and restructuring of Korean early childhood education. Through a literature analysis methodology, we examined the overall changes in the British educational policies over the last 20 years, followed by the analysis of the British early childhood policies and curriculum, and explored possible side-effects of national quality improvements on the early childhood education. The Thatcherian educational reform took the top-down approach, represented with the national curriculum and standardized achievement test. The results of this top-down British educational reform including early childhood education reconstruction have created a severe polarization of educational opportunities and child poverty. This 20 years' history of British educational reform provides implications for the current reconstructing process of Korean early childhood education that if policy makers do not take the visions and suggestions of early childhood experts' and practitioners seriously, early childhood institutions will be trapped in the cycles of perpetual change that lead nowhere.

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