Marilyn Fleer Bert vanOers 4

Editors 5

International Handbook 6

of Early Childhood 7

Education 8

Volume I 9
Chapter 41 1

Early Childhood Education inChile 2

RodrigoA.Crcamo 3

Abstract This chapter summarizes around 200 years of history of early childhood 4
education in Chile. For the time of the colony, the first records about childhood 5
education are described with an account of the purpose of these schools with their 6
Catholic tradition and the differential attention to children from different social 7
classes and ethnicities. With the advent of the Republic, the Lancaster educational 8
model was applied but changed over the years following ideas from several coun- 9
tries. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the first kindergartens with the 10
Froebel pedagogic system were implemented. In 1906, the first public kindergarten 11
was officially created including professional training programs. The chapter also 12
discusses coverage and investment in early childhood education from the govern- 13
ment, which has never stopped. Since 1990, a series of reforms in education have 14
taken place. The last decade highlighted the major effort ever undertaken: for the 15
first time, the Chilean government prioritized to set up a public policy toward chil- 16
drens protection and well-being involving early stimulation programs, educational 17
programs for parents, and coverage to attend full-time daycare centers. Additionally, 18
the public policy for childcare centers offers intercultural programs for ethnic 19
minority children from 2 to 5 years old. The last decade has been marked by an 20
exponential scientific interest in aspects like cognitive and socio-emotional devel- 21
opment, which is also discussed, as well as the future of scientific research to 22
improve our understanding of child development in the Chilean context and the 23
impact of the latest policies in early childhood education. 24

Keywords Early childhood education Chile Childcare Intercultural programs 25

R.A. Crcamo (*)

School of Psychology, Universidad de Magallanes, Punta Arenas, Chile
e-mail: rodrigo.carcamo@umag.cl

Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2017 825

M. Fleer, B. van Oers (eds.), International Handbook of Early Childhood
Education, Springer International Handbooks of Education,
DOI10.1007/978-94-024-0927-7_41
 826 R.A. Crcamo

26 41.1 Brief History ofChileans Early Childhood Education

27 Early childhood care and education in Chile has undergone a great change in the last
28 decade. For the first time, the Chilean government has established as a priority to set
29 up a public policy toward childrens protection and well-being called Chile Grows
30 With You, which among other things involves programs such as early stimulation,
31 educational programs for parents, and coverage to attend full-time daycare centers
32 (Saracostti 2010). In a period when female participation in the labor force is encour-
33 aged as a means to reduce poverty and its reproduction, about 43% of Chilean
34 women have entered the labor market, and the number of daycare centers for chil-
35 dren from 3 months old has quintupled between 2006 and 2009. As a result, in 2009,
36 approximately 37.4% of the preschoolers received non-maternal care and most of
37 them from 35 to 45 h per week (Medrano 2009). However, behind this change, there
38 is a history of several transitions through the republican trajectory of the country
39 that will be summarized as follows.
40 For the time of the colony, the first records about childhood education are
41 described by Rojas (2010), who explained in an invaluable source how the elemen-
42 tary schools were arranged at the end of the eighteenth century. The schools had as
43 their basic purpose to teach to pray, read, write, and basic math operations and pre-
44 vailed in Catholic tradition and a strong use of rewards and punishments. Children
45 from different social classes could attend them but not from different races: Negros
46 and Zambos1 were not allowed to receive theses teachings. Fees that the richest
47 families paid supported those schools, and poor (but white) children who attended
48 the same school did it without payment. The educational system was also highly
49 restricted for girls, who received education in a few monasteries, but as an exception
50 that only rich families could afford. Prior to this, from 1700 to 1811, a specific
51 school for Mapuche indigenous children existed, with the goal to evangelize them
52 and modify their traditions; however, it was never successful and disappeared slowly
53 over time. With the advent of the Republic, the Lancaster educational model was
54 introduced: the more advanced students had to pass on their knowledge to the less
55 advanced ones, which enabled the same number of teachers to educate larger num-
56 bers of students, but over the years, it changed under the influence of France,
57 Germany, and the United States of America (Egaa 2000).
58 In the second half of the nineteenth century, the first kindergartens were imple-
59 mented; however, there were just few private attempts, since the priority was given
60 to primary school at that time (Peralta 2008). Those centers were strongly influ-
61 enced by the Froebelism pedagogic system. In 1902, two positions were in contra-
62 position: some authorities declared that early education must be provided at home
63 by parents, but others were more enthusiastic with the idea that moral principles can

1
These terms are no longer in use; nowadays, they have a pejorative meaning. At that time, Negros
was the word to identify individuals of African ancestry, and Zambos was used to identify individu-
als who were of mixed African and Amerindian ancestry.
41 Early Childhood Education inChile 827

be better transmitted at the age of 4in kindergarten and that bad habits can thus be 64
avoided. 65
Thereby in 1906, the first public kindergarten was officially created, and profes- 66
sional training programs began. However, the support by the government decreased, 67
and in 1914, all the public kindergartens were closed (Rojas 2010). During the next 68
decades, several attempts by professionals of education were made to increase the 69
number of public kindergartens without real success, especially because in eco- 70
nomic crisis the government was supporting preferably primary education. The 71
Montessori method was present in those few centers that were still open but serving 72
a very low number of children. In the 1950s, the coverage for children under 5 years 73
of age was around 0.9 %, which increased to 2 % in the 1960s and 4 % in the 1970s. 74
In this period of the Allende government, early childhood education was a priority 75
and the coverage increased 15 % each year on average (Echeverra 1982). The main 76
reasoning behind this policy was to provide mothers access to the labor market, 77
keep children away from the street, and improve their development through early 78
stimulation. 79
All the efforts to create a policy to promote preschool education echoed in 1970, 80
with the enactment of the law that among others created the National Kindergartens 81
Board (Junta Nacional de Jardines Infantiles, JUNJI), which grouped several insti- 82
tutions and coordinate all the public centers to this day (Rojas 2010). In the 1980s, 83
during the dictatorship, the preprimary school continued growing in terms of cover- 84
age, but the most important issue at this time was the instauration of a very strong 85
private system; the neoliberalism permitted the expansion of both private institu- 86
tions or universities which were allowed to offer undergraduate programs in pre- 87
school education and private or semiprivate childcare centers which were subsidized 88
by the state (Umayahara 2006). 89
Since the democracy was restored in 1990, a series of reforms in education has 90
taken place. The goal was to increase the coverage and improve the quality and 91
equality in public education in general. These changes were accompanied of a series 92
of reforms on the curriculum, and for the first time, the curricula include diverse 93
ethnic contents representing all the indigenous people. From the beginning of the 94
twenty-first century, a reform of early childhood education was begun, based on a 95
new curricular basis; an important feature is the trust given to the teachers as profes- 96
sionals who together with the community can promote childrens learning 97
(Umayahara 2006). The theoretical background is based on the socio-cognitive 98
paradigm, which emphasizes the active role that children must play in their own 99
learning process, taking into account the sociocultural context where it occurs (Friz 100
etal. 2009). 101
The last decade was characterized by the creation of the unprecedented public 102
policy called Chile Crece Contigo (Chile Grows With You), which would become 103
one of the pillars of the policy of social protection, that among others increased the 104
number of public daycare centers from 708in 2005 to 4.243in 2009 (Rojas 2010). 105
Again as in the 1970s, the purpose was to provide conditions of equality from the 106
early years to the most vulnerable population in Chile (Saracostti 2010). 107
 828 R.A. Crcamo

108 The current situation of early childhood education in Chile can be summarized
109 by a mixed system between private and public childcare centers, where the coverage
110 has been increasing enormously and the government guarantee free and full-time
111 access to the 60 % of the most vulnerable population in Chile (Rojas 2010). The age
112 range of the children is from 86 days to 6 years old, arranged in three different levels
113 of 2 years each. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
114 Development [OECD] (2013), around 42 % of the children in Chile under the age
115 of 3 and 77 % of the children at the age of 4 attend preprimary education. Despite
116 this, the annual expenditure per child in preprimary education is one of the lowest
117 in the OECD countries, slightly more than half of the average annual expenditure in
118 OECD countries (OECD 2013). However, the government is still trying to enroll
119 more children in these levels of education, based on the idea that this policy can
120 break down the circle of poverty, because mothers may participate in the labor mar-
121 ket and their children receive adequate stimulation, particularly those children from
122 vulnerable contexts and therefore develop in conditions of greater equity (MINEDUC
123 2013). The quantitative increase is well documented, but we know little about pos-
124 sible qualitative changes in Chilean childcare.

125 41.2 Indigenous Children intheModern Chilean Society

126 Although the current indigenous population in Chile is quite small and there are
127 disagreements about the data to estimate its presence, the past governments have
128 attempted to perform certain policies to preserve its existence. While the total would
129 represent no more than 11% of the population, the Mapuche ethnic group is notable
130 for its major presence compared to other ethnic groups. Several measures have been
131 implemented. The current program Chile Grows With You justifiably tries to take
132 the differences between the various ethnic groups in Chile into account, addressing
133 them in terms of their accepted belief system. An example is the five different
134 guidelines that the program provides to mothers during the pregnancy period
135 (Standard, Aymara, Mapuche, Rapa Nui, Chilota), where the beliefs and advices for
136 that period come from their own culture (Chile Crece Contigo 2013).
137 Additionally, the public policy for childcare centers offers special intercultural
138 programs in preprimary education for children from 2 to 5 years old belonging to
139 one of the following original or immigrant ethnic minorities: Aymara, Atacameo,
140 Colla, Rapa Nui, Mapuche, Pehuenche, Huilliche, Kawashkar, and Ymana. The
141 main goal of this program is strengthening cultural identity and sense of belonging
142 of indigenous communities, enhancing the educational role of families and com-
143 munities involved, promoting mother tongue in children attending intercultural cen-
144 ters of indigenous communities, and supporting nutrition given to children
145 appropriate to their culture and age (JUNJI n.d.). These efforts began in the early
146 1990s, for example, introducing Mapudungun (the Mapuche language) as a regular
147 course in some primary schools, but they never reached a high impact. Nowadays,
148 the experience in intercultural preschools shows that some indigenous families do
41 Early Childhood Education inChile 829

not like the idea at all, because they see opportunities of social mobilization in the 149
standard educational system. They claim that the intercultural teaching of the 150
Mapuche language, for instance, hinders the adequate development of their children 151
and reveals their ethnic origin, which can make them the object of discrimination in 152
the Chilean society (Sadler and Obach 2006). 153

41.3 Current Status oftheResearch inEarly Childhood 154

Education inChile 155

Scientific research with international impact in Chile is quite recent, especially in 156
aspects of early childhood development (Crcamo etal. 2014a). Until the 1990s, 157
practically all the research was done in the field of health; however, when the coun- 158
try achieved an infant mortality rate and nutritional status of its population compa- 159
rable to that of developed countries, the focus shifted toward the enhancement of 160
psycho-emotional aspects of childrens development and environment, both at home 161
and at school (Crcamo etal. 2014a). 162
In the field of early childhood education, the last decade has been marked by an 163
exponential scientific interest in aspects like cognitive and socio-emotional devel- 164
opment (i.e., Crcamo etal. 2016; Noboa-Hidalgo and Urza 2012; Santelices etal. 165
2009; Seguel etal. 2012) and quality of the childcare environment (Crcamo etal. 166
2014b; Herrera etal. 2005; Strasser etal. 2009; Villaln etal. 2002); however, the 167
presence of the Chilean studies in the international academic community is still 168
limited. Moreover, there is some research in the field, focused in child development 169
and risk factors in preschoolers, which was just spread locally. 170
From the current research, there are some findings related to early childhood 171
education that can be summarized as follow. Crcamo et al. (2016) studied 96 172
mother-infant dyads divided into two groups, one group of children who received 173
exclusive maternal care during the first year and another group who attended child- 174
care centers during the same period, to see whether early attendance in childcare 175
centers can affect the attachment relationship between children and their mothers. 176
The dyads came from low SES samples and they were all measured twice, just 177
before the start of the childcare arrangements and after approximately 8 months. 178
Additionally, a subgroup of Mapuche families were involved in both samples. 179
Results showed that children who belong to the Mapuche benefit from early child- 180
care attendance and improve the security of their attachment relationship, control- 181
ling by income and maternal features. For the total group, there were no 182
pretest-posttest differences in attachment after 8 months of full-time childcare 183
attendance. 184
Noboa-Hidalgo and Urza (2012) analyzed data from a longitudinal study in 185
low-income populations in Chile. The study was meant to uncover the effects of 186
participation in public childcare centers on a range of cognitive and socio-emotional 187
development outcomes in young children. The authors found positive effects of 188
 830 R.A. Crcamo

189 childcare attendance on cognitive and emotional regulation outcomes, but, interest-
190 ingly, they also found potential negative effects on child-adult interactions and rea-
191 soning and memory skills. These authors stressed the importance of quality of care
192 for child outcomes, especially in infant classrooms.
193 Seguel etal. (2012) analyzed the differential effects of childcare attendance on
194 childrens development and learning. The study was longitudinally designed,
195 including four time-points where the first time-point was around the age of 15
196 months and the last time point around 4 years. The comparison was between a group
197 who attended childcare in public centers in Chile during the 4 years and a group that
198 received maternal care during the same period, matched by sociodemographics
199 variables. The authors concluded that children who had attended childcare did not
200 differ on cognitive outcomes compared with children who had received maternal
201 care exclusively. However, there was a positive effect on the cognitive development
202 when children were enrolled in childcare after 3 years of age. According to the
203 authors, the quality of the caregiver-child interactions is the most likely explanation
204 for this positive effect (Seguel etal. 2012).
205 Another Chilean study conducted by Santelices etal. (2010) involved 185 chil-
206 dren, their primary caregivers, and the staff from their childcare centers. Children
207 on average were 19 months old (range from 8 to 24 months) and from low SES.The
208 investigation was meant to compare the interactions that children develop with their
209 parents and caregivers at the centers. The authors found that early childhood experi-
210 ence in daycare centers can be positive for children thanks to the fact that it improves
211 the qualitative exchange between caregivers and children to develop cognitive func-
212 tions, more than at home, where mothers or primary caregivers principally develop
213 affective aspects.
214 Assuming that quality in the context of early childhood education matters,
215 Chilean findings about the quality of childcare center can be summarized as fol-
216 lows. Results showed that the majority of the daycare centers for 02-year-olds
217 (Crcamo etal. 2014b; Herrera etal. 2005) and the preschools (Villaln etal. 2002)
218 do not reach a quality level above the low or mediocre level, with a tendency for
219 better results in private centers. For the 45-year-olds, the state daycare centers on
220 average reached better results than the private ones. However, the centers of highest
221 quality were all privately owned. In both infant/toddler and preschool classrooms, it
222 was concluded that the process quality of care in Chile was at a moderate level.
223 Crcamo etal. (2014b) also did a meta-analysis to compare the Chilean quality of
224 childcare centers with that found in other international studies. In total, 23 studies
225 from ten countries were included, and the results showed that the quality of the
226 Chilean classrooms was comparable with the quality levels found in most European
227 studies, although the score was somewhat lower than the scores found in studies
228 conducted in USA and Australia. Importantly, the interaction subscale of the quality
229 of the Chilean childcare centers scored consistently high across in the three
230 studies.
231 Strasser et al. (2009) were interested in the time distribution and activities in
232 preschool centers in Chile. The authors showed that the main activities in preschool
233 classrooms from different socioeconomic status were unstructured ones, and most
41 Early Childhood Education inChile 831

of the time children were engaged in free-play and enjoying mealtime, or the care- 234
giver was disciplining the children. These findings were not very positive and sug- 235
gest that the quality of the instruction in preprimary education in Chile still needs 236
some improvement. Thus, even when there is some evidence about the good interac- 237
tion that caregivers can display in infant classrooms, other factors need to be con- 238
sidered to reach a higher overall quality. 239

41.4 Future Research Needs 240

For the first time in its history, there is a very important general agreement in Chile 241
about the need to invest as never before in early childhood education. Nowadays, 242
such problems as infant mortality, malnutrition, and stunted growth belong to his- 243
tory and no longer form a priority in public policy. As other authors have empha- 244
sized, early childhood education needs new steps to improve its level, coverage has 245
been increased but quality and equity has been relegated to a second place (Peralta 246
2008; Umayahara 2006). Future research is indeed desirable to improve our under- 247
standing of child development in the Chilean context and for evaluating the impact 248
of the latest policies in early childhood education. It might be also important to 249
evaluate the quality of early childhood education, especially in the vulnerable con- 250
text where the current public policy is trying to provide better and equal starting 251
conditions. 252

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