The THRIECE (Teaching for Holistic, Relational and Inclusive Early Childhood Education) project is a response to the current shift in European education towards neoliberal discourses that prioritise ‘valuable’ knowledge while devaluing areas not seen to have utility in a global economy. This relentless drive for ‘quality’ is resulting in the narrowing of curricula, the standardisation of achievement through testing and international ranking, and in a fixation on quantitative measurement as the true arbiter of quality education. The THRIECE partnership believes that this current situation is insufficient if contemporary Europe is to effectively address social inclusion. Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) is widely promoted as a means to achieving inclusion for the 508.5 million young people in Europe. THRIECE will address the worrying focus on bringing settings (structural indicators) and children (outcome indicators) to predetermined fixed points, irrespective of background or culture. Such approaches may propagate deficit models, with some children and communities seen as insufficient based on social class, language or ethnicity. If treated uncritically, measures of ‘quality’ can become instruments of social exclusion. Comprising three pre-schools, three primary schools and four HEIs, THRIECE is a unique Irish-Polish-Portuguese partnership that proposes an alternative view of quality in ECEC that supports inclusion through recognition of the crucial nature of relationships and interactions (process indicators). Its aims to provide an alternative voice for European education based on three pillars: 1. Holistic education: Emphasis on the interrelatedness of domains of development, drawing on children’s own talents, emotions, cultures and interests. 2. Inclusive education: Inclusive practices, welcoming sociocultural diversity, and opposing exclusive, standardised perspectives and methods. 3. Relational education: Positive interactions and relationships are more important for measuring quality in early education than narrow numerical indicators. The project partners will argue that early educators in Europe need support in legitimising these concepts, but they also need practical strategies to implement them in their day-to-day work. Through ongoing in-country collaboration and transnational exchange of practice, THRIECE will culminate in the development of three intellectual outputs – online training modules for early educators on inclusive, relational and holistic education. The modules will provide space for educators to conceptualise ‘good’ education, but will also provide practical resources for use in early educational settings across Europe. The design of the modules promotes transferability and impact at local, national, EU and even international level. By involving partners from three EU member states with different skillsets, THRIECE brings added value at EU level through results that would not be attained by activities in a single country. This large, multi-actor consortium has the expertise to ensure that the project is undertaken efficiently and professionally. In summary, this project proposes an innovative, multi-disciplinary, cross-national approach to addressing issues highly relevant to the priorities of social inclusion and development of quality ECEC. It identifies three key pillars - holistic, inclusive and relational education - to speak as a countervailing riposte against the prevailing neoliberal norm in European education. It empowers early educators through provision of a conceptual and practice-based toolkit for quality, inclusive ECEC, with the potential to provoke exponential transformative change for European education, through enhancing children’s experience of education at a critical stage in their lives. Considering the well-established links between good quality early education and a range of positive social, emotional, behavioural, educational and even physical outcomes, the impact of this project has the potential to be considerable.
The THRIECE (Teaching for Holistic, Relational and Inclusive Early Childhood Education) project was a response to the significant shift in European education towards neoliberal discourses that devalue learning not regarded as having utility in a global economy. The relentless drive for ‘quality’ has resulted in narrowing of curricula, standardisation of achievement through testing and international ranking, and a fixation on quantitative measurement as the arbiter of quality education. The THRIECE partnership believed that this conceptualisation of quality was insufficient and potentially damaging. Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) has been widely promoted as a means to achieving inclusion for the 508.5 million young people in Europe, and THRIECE aimed to address the worrying focus on bringing settings (structural indicators) and children (outcome indicators) to predetermined fixed points, irrespective of background or culture. The THRIECE project was of the view that such approaches could propagate deficit models, which if treated uncritically, could see measures of ‘quality’ becoming instruments of social exclusion. Comprising 3 preschools, 3 primary schools and 4 HEIs, THRIECE was a unique Irish-Polish-Portuguese partnership that proposed an alternative view of quality in ECEC that supported inclusion through recognition of the crucial nature of relationships and interactions (process indicators). We provided an alternative voice for European education based on three pillars: 1. Holistic education: Emphasising the interrelatedness of domains of development, drawing on children’s own talents, emotions, cultures and interests. 2. Inclusive education: Supporting sociocultural diversity and inclusion, and opposing exclusive, standardised perspectives and methods. 3. Relational education: Identifying positive interactions and relationships as more important for measuring quality in ECEC than narrow numerical indicators. We argued that early educators in Europe needed support in legitimising these concepts, but also practical strategies to implement them in their daily work. This culminated in the development of three intellectual outputs – online modules for early educators on inclusive, relational and holistic education. These modules were developed using a Participatory Action Research approach, structured around 9 key international events (5 Transnational Project Management Meetings and 4 Learning, Teaching and Training Activities), with ongoing in-country work continuing in the intervening periods. This methodology allowed our expert early childhood educators and primary school teachers to work in partnership with our academics from a breadth of relevant theoretical and professional backgrounds. In doing this, we created a culture for true innovation, allowing for identification, development and dissemination of what true ‘quality’ ECEC looks like in theory and practice. This has borne fruit in our three online modules, which provide space for educators to conceptualise ‘good’ education, whilst also providing practical resources for use in educational settings. The design of these modules, along with their availability in three languages (Polish, English & Portuguese), promotes transferability and impact at local, national, EU and international level. Our three THRIECE multiplier events were successfully hosted in Porto, Gdansk and Carlow, respectively. Feedback was overwhelmingly positive and there was a significant expression of interest in our online modules across Europe and internationally. In summary, THRIECE proposed an innovative, multi-disciplinary, cross-national approach to addressing issues highly relevant to the priorities of social inclusion and development of quality ECEC. It identified and animated three key pillars of quality ECEC - holistic, inclusive and relational education - to speak as a countervailing riposte against the prevailing neoliberal norm in European education. By involving partners from three EU member states with different skillsets, THRIECE achieved results that could not have been attained by activities in a single country. Our choice of research methodology, along with our warm, richly stimulating and expert partnerships has meant that we finish this project not only with online modules that provide strong support to educators to challenge the dominant neoliberal discourse, but also with a clear and comprehensive new paradigm that dialogues with traditionally polarised perspectives (Nowak-Lojewska, O’Toole, Regan and Fereira, 2019; O’Toole, Regan and Nowak-Lojewska, 2019). There are well-established links between good quality early education and a range of positive social, emotional, behavioural, educational and even physical outcomes. With broad attendance at our multiplier events and significant interest in our online modules, available open-source for five years, the project has the potential to have a considerable impact across Europe for years to come.