Question Answered step-by-step give 3 key points as they relate to how the Netherlands & Germany… give 3 key points as they relate to how the Netherlands & Germany deal with family literacy programs using the passage below. X.2 The Netherlands X.2.1 Introduction2 Family literacy programs in the Netherlands came to rise in the context of the country’s policy on educational disadvantage, which was initiated in the 1970s in response to concerns about significant disparities between groups of children in key areas of school success and the arrival of undereducated labor migrants and their families from countries such as Turkey and Morocco (Van Kampen, Kloprogge, Rutten, & Schonewille, 2005). The policy regulated the allocation of additional resources to children at risk of school failure (i.e., children of low SES and nonwestern, immigrant parents). During the 1990s, early childhood education (ECE) became one of the pillars of the governments’ activities to improve these children’s position in education. In this period policymakers focused on home-based intervention (Van Kampen et al., 2005): Following examples in the U.S. and Israel, steps were taken to develop programs aiming to contribute to more stimulating home environments. The first program to be introduced was Opstap, an adaptation of the Israeli HIPPY program (Lombard, 1994). Opstap is still in use and undoubtedly the most elaborately evaluated program to date. We will describe the program and the outcomes of a large-scale longitudinal effect study in Section 2.1. Subsequently, a variety of family (literacy) programs were developed (Van Kampen et al., 2005). Some were adaptations of the Opstap framework for other age groups (see 2.2). Another nationwide program is Boekenpret (see 2.3). There are also a variety of local projects, none of which will be discussed here. The late 1990s saw a shift in focus (Van Kampen et al., 2005). In 1998 the policy on educational disadvantage was decentralized to the level of municipalities. Additionally, there was an increasing interest of policymakers in center-based approaches to ECE focusing on preschool playgroups and kindergartens as contexts of implementation. Using intervention models developed in the U.S. (Success for All, High Scope), experimental center-based programs were designed, tested and found to be effective for at-risk children (Schonewille, Kloprogge, & Van der Leij, 2000). These positive experiences lead to the introduction of a specific ECE regulation by the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science (ECS) in 2000, which stated that financial means could only be used for ECE programs if these were offered in center-based settings. Naturally, this weakened the status of home-based programs (Kalthoff & Pennings, 2007). Although legislation has changed, the situation of home-based programs is more or less the same today: Resources are limited, makeing the position of these programs vulnerable (Kalthoff & Pennings, 2007; Smit, Driessen, Van Kuijk, & De Wit, 2008). This has lead to a substantial decrease in the number of municipalities offering such programs (Beekhoven, Jepma, Kooiman, & Van der Vegt, 2009). Social Science Psychology EEC 3400 Share QuestionEmailCopy link Comments (0)