Keynote presentation at Parenting and Personhood: Cross-cultural perspectives on expertise, family life and risk management

1. Changing parenting norms in Denmark and
Singapore?
Dil Bach, Aarhus University and The Danish Centre for Research in Early Childhood Education and Care, Roskilde University
• 2005-2008: Fieldwork
among wealthy Danish
families (incl. visits to
kindergartens and
schools).
• 2013: Fieldwork in
families and preschools in
Singapore.
• 2016: Fieldwork in a
kindergarten in a wealthy
neighbourhood in
Denmark. Interviews with
the parents.

2. Theoretical inspiration

3. Working women in Denmark
 Denmark has the highest rate
of working mothers with
young children(approximately
80%) of all European
Community countries.
 One of the means to achieve
the high percentage of
women on the labor-market
was the enormous
expansions of preschools
during the 1960’s and 1970’s.

4. Educational content
 Rather than subject-
oriented learning or
academic school
preparation, the
educational content
focuses on children’s play –
often free play – and
children’s development of
social and emotional
competences.

5. Christoffer (8 years) is so good at playing... He is good
at playing with things. He has all sorts of setups with
things made of small wooden blocks. He is so
creative... (If he gets frustrated by the computer, I’ll
tell him not to use it for the next week, and he just
starts playing with his toys. And he is really, really
good at it.) If he has friends over, they will be playing
too. And when their parents come to pick them up,
they’ll be, like: ‘God, you haven’t played on the
computer at all,’ because their children are really, like,
computer-children.
(Int. with Chris’ mum 2006)

6. Looking east.
New norms?
We must focus more on parents’
active commitment to their
children’s learning... It might be
to say that one should be
reading for 20 minutes each day
with one’s child (Antorini 2012).
We can learn a lot from
Singapore (Antorini 2014)

7. • For parents, it’s not
about getting their
children to be clever
enough to beat the
Chinese in PISA tests.
The holistic
development of
children is more
important (Hagensen
2014)
• The question is whether
we want a situation like
in Singapore where
parents compete by
buying private tuition
for their children, so
they can get ahead
(Kryger 2014)

8. Out here, there are a lot of parents who have very high
ambitions on their children’s behalves regarding learning
abilities and how fast it should go. My wife and I are more
like; we believe that a sense of security will ensure the
optimal development of children … At the last parent-teacher
meeting, some parents were asking whether the
kindergarten is doing anything to prepare the children for
school - something with numbers or letters, or some reading.
And then the day-care manager simply said: 'We have
received strict orders from the municipality that our task is to
prepare the children for school by making them feel secure.
We should not get involved in the academic stuff. That will
start in primary school.’ And then some parents said: ‘No, at
least the last six months before they start school, there must
be something you can do.’ We do not belong to that category
(of parents). (Christian 2016)

9. • But I also think, because we have family in
southern Europe, that they learn a lot at that age,
5-6 years; that they are indeed receptive to
learning a whole lot. There we sometimes feel
that our kids are a little behind … It is hard to find
out, as a parent, how much pre-school stuff is
actually being put into their heads at the
kindergarten … I think they are receptive to more
than is typically the case when it's just free play ...
(Laura 2016)

10. • C: They are very ambitious in their very early schooling. I
also think they are too ambitious. But I really think that
there were many good things there …They had a completely
different school-like teaching. Every day they were sitting in
a classroom, where they had a teacher, who would teach
them to sit nicely and raise their hand and such things. I do
not think they are doing that here.
• N: Would you prefer more of that here?
• C: I think it is a good preparation ...
• D: Do you think there's enough of that here?
• C: For me, I wouldn’t mind, if there was more.
(Charlotte 2016)

12. Singapore
• Please let your children have
their childhoods!... Education
experts, child development
specialists, they warn against
over teaching pre-school
children. You do harm, you
turn the kid off, you make his
life miserable … No homework
is not a bad thing. It is good
for young children to play and
to learn through play. So
please... I read of parents who
send their kindergarten age
children to tuition, please do
not do that

13. • ‘No, my child is going to have a happy
childhood.’ And now he is in school, and
he has [extra] Chinese class. I can’t say,
‘Well just continue to be happy,’ because
he’s going to fall behind.
• In the end, it’s still the same and in the
end it puts affluent children at an
advantage academically. Off course they
have a miserable childhood, but
academically they are advantaged …
Those children whose parents are
educated enough to be worried about
them academically, these are the ones
who have a chance of becoming lawyers
and doctors and have a great life.
• If I didn’t do that now, like pushing him
and scolding him and being very fierce
with him …, then I would have failed as a
mother.
• She is a very good mother, because she
sacrificed a lot of herself to push her
children

14. SINDA//MOE
• All parents want
PSLE-results. But the
school is more than
that. Find out other
results, more holistic.
We need to change
the mindset of
parents (MOE
representative 2013).
SINDA Tutorials for Enhanced
Performance – STEP