Michigan State University Extension
Diversity and Pluralism - DP120377
12/95/
ERIC TITLE NUMBER: ED224589 AUTHOR: Edgar, Don; Ochiltree, Gay
TITLE: Family Change and Early Childhood Development.
Institute of Family Studies Discussion Paper No. 6.
YEAR PUBLISHED: 1982
NOTE: 18 p.; Paper presented at the National Triennial
Conference of the Australian Early Childhood Association
(16th, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, May 24-28, 1982).
AVAILABILITY: Editor, Institute of Family Studies, 766
Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, 3000, Australia (no price
quoted).
ABSTRACT: Attempts are made in this address to outline how
social change in Australia affects the nurturing tasks of
family life and to suggest a rethinking of how the
community as a whole might assist the child development
process. Changes in the Australian family context include
divorce, family breakdown, one-parent families, remarriage,
extended three-generation families, smaller nuclear
families, population mobility, employed women, low incomes
for working women, and unemployment. Given this context of
change, the question is raised: What major propositions
about early childhood development bear on the topic of
change and the need to involve the community in the
societal responsibilty for children? Ten propositions based
on theoretical and empirical grounds are advanced and
compared, and their implications for Australian early
childhood educators are drawn. Knowing how unequal families
are in the economic and cultural resources they provide,
the authors assert that the educators of Australia's young
children should build on each family context and assist
parents in their efforts to develop children with a sense
of their own self-worth. This goal can only be reached with
concerted social effort in a time of rapid social change.
(RH)
KEY DESCRIPTORS: Childhood-Needs; Family-Life; Foreign
Countries
KEY DESCRIPTORS: *Community-Involvement; *Early-Childhood
Education; *Educational-Principles; *Family-Problems;
*Social-Change; *Teacher-Role
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