INTRODUCTION

The kind of knowledge that is valued within a community may be similar or dissimilar to that of other communities. Societies have different traditions for early childhood pedagogical knowledge and for the outcomes of learning during that period. In the social pedagogy tradition, ‘all children should develop a desire and curiosity for learning, and confidence in their own learning, rather than achieving a pre-specified level of knowledge and proficiency’ (Martin-Korpi 2005, cited in OECD, 2006: 60). Wagner and Einarsdottir (2006) argue that in the Nordic tradition,

The OECD (2006) report contrasts the social pedagogy tradition with what it has termed ‘a preprimary approach’. In countries that the OECD defined as tending to use a preprimary approach, it argued that curriculum in the early years is linked directly to the curriculum found in primary schools. Curricula are generally based on subject domains, such as literacy, numeracy and science.