Veranstaltungsprogramm

Recent decades have seen a global trend towards standardised assessment and tracking in early childhood education, as part of a wider discourse around educational quality (Alasuutari et al., 2020; Kelle & Tervooren, 2008; Roberts-Holmes & Moss, 2021). Children are measured against universal developmental milestones in communication, motor, cognitive and relational skills. This has further intensified post-COVID-19-pandemic (Kustatscher et al., 2026). Concerns have been raised about the resulting datafication of children: It can promote a reductive approach to children as full human beings, intensify a numerical focus on settings’ performance and inspection, and direct practitioners to prioritise managerial over relational aspects of their work (Bradbury & Robert-Holmes, 2017; Kelle & Ott, 2009; Paananen et al., 2024). Additionally, normatively shaped tools can further marginalise and stigmatise already minoritised children (Hamacher & Seitz, 2020; Kelle and Mierendorff, 2013). Concerns also include the increasing influence of tech companies in shaping educational policy and practice, whilst expanding children and families’ digital surveillance (Bradbury & Robert-Holmes, 2017; Paananen et al., 2024).

The pilot study “Childhood by numbers? Investigating assessment and datafication processes in early childhood” (funded by the RSE Scotland-Lower Saxony Research and Innovation Scheme), examines current assessment tools and practices in Germany and Scotland. We define early childhood education (ECE) as 0-8 years and therefore focus on assessment and tracking (linguistic, cognitive, motor, relational) both in ECE and in and around primary school. Our main research objective is to explore what information about children is (not) captured in current assessment tools, with the aim to map how this information is utilised at setting, regional and national level. For example, in Scotland, many local authorities have introduced standardised developmental trackers (Kustatscher et al., 2023) and in Germany, debates on compulsory early childhood speech and language testing emerged (Albers and Bostancı, 2025).

Using a childhood studies lens (Spyrou et al., 2019b) we first present the results of our scoping review on datafication and childhood in and around early childhood education. We show that generational orders are overlooked in the current focus of Critical EdTech Studies on processes of datafication in research, while at the same time historical perspectives on the measurement of childhood also permeate the current state of research on datafication. Secondly, we present first insights of expert interviews and focus groups conducted in Scotland and Germany to show how assessment and datafication of children is shaped by and at the same time reproducing normative ideas about good childhoods. Following Decuypere’s (2021) framework for analysing data practices in education, we argue that the actual doings and the interfaces of measurement tools can give first insights of the disentanglement of data practices. A particular focus is on how social inequalities are addressed or reproduced in how assessment tools conceptualise and capture children’s data. In conclusion, we compare emerging trends in Germany and Scotland and identify future directions for research in this field.

In recent decades, expectations regarding education and integration in early childhood and care (ECEC) facilities have increased (e.g., Diehm, 2018; Kuhn & Neumann, 2016). At the same time parents are being held responsible for the success of their children's educational processes (e.g., Bischoff-Pabst & Knoll, 2020). This can be described as a child-centered parenting model that is linked to corresponding educational expectations. This also applies to parental involvement in educational institutions (e.g., Betz, 2025). At the same time, digitalisation and technological processes are playing an increasingly important role in ECEC facilities (Knauf, 2020; Reichert-Garschhammer et al., 2025). There are already numerous commercial app providers offering complete solutions for ECEC facilities and for the communication of parents and ECEC staff. However, research on how these apps are changing everyday practice in facilities is still largely lacking. Studies relating to educational technologies in primary education (e.g., Hartong & Manolev, 2023) already provide important critical assessments of data platforms and the construction of ‘good’ parents through these apps.

The project “Digital platforms in collaboration between families and ECEC facilities – reproduction of inequalities or equalization?” (DigiFo) is the first to examine the forms and effects of using digital formats to collaborate between ECEC facilities and families from different social backgrounds. As part of the research project, we are taking stock of the use of and experiences with digital communication via app in ECEC facilities in the Wuppertal region. We are conducting a qualitative analysis of six apps, surveying facility managers in writing, and conducting expert interviews, all of which will be evaluated using content analysis. In the context of this symposium, we focus on the apps themselves and ask what (implicit) normative effects, for example, extensive digital “super-documentation” (Knauf, 2019, p. 123) of various types of observational data on children (and families) might have and how the virtual structure of the app frames the interaction between parents and professionals. Our focus is on the question of how ‘good’ parenting is constructed in this context. To this end, we present the initial results of a qualitative analysis of the apps, based on Ben Light et al.’s (2018) walkthrough method. This method involves a ‘step-by-step observation and documentation’ of an app’s screens (ibid.), for example the documentation-features. This makes the actions of an app salient, so that they can be used for critical analysis. Our initial observations show that ECEC apps offer comprehensive opportunities to provide parents with daily data, for example, impressions of mood or photos of the child. Parents may also be able to access educational documentation (such as individual portfolios), which can be used for development meetings about the child. (‘Good’) parenting becomes measurable for professionals by digitally tracking how interested, informed, and involved parents are. With this article, we want to discuss the standardization of parenting through certain data (collection) practices and thus contribute productively to the discussion about data collection on children with a focus on early childhood education.

School-related abilities determine practices as early as early childhood education and are particularly relevant in the transition to primary school (e.g. Engel, 2023; Krompak & Bender, 2019). Development-related normalisations and standardisations play a particularly important role in the transition to primary school when it comes to determining and establishing school readiness (Kelle, 2011). Determining and establishing school readiness proves to be a complex, interactive process that unfolds between actors within educational organisations (including teachers and educators) and actors outside these organisations (including medical specialists and parents). Ableism-critical discussions of school readiness criticise constructs of school readiness as a reproduction of images of dis_able and “normal” children and point to intersectional connections (Petrik & Pokitsch, 2022).

Based on the assumption that school readiness is not an objective construct but rather one created in the interactions of the actors, the praxeological-sociological project described in the proposed presentation examines how school readiness is constructed by the actors involved and what action-guiding orientations emerge in view of ability norms. Following Bohnsack's (2014a) remarks on habitus, norms and identity, norms only become relevant when they are recontextualised by the actors in a way that is relevant to their actions. For the project, narratively structured interviews were conducted with educational professionals in daycare centres, parents of children in transition, and teachers/school administrators in primary schools (cf. Nohl, 2007). The interviews and reconstructions using the documentary method (Bohnsack, 2014a/b) address, among other things, the central question of how school ability norms are constructed and how the actors act in view of these constructed and action-relevant norms.

After providing a general overview of the project, the lecture focuses primarily on the perspective of educational professionals in ECEC. It explores the question of how the actors prepare children for school and what orientations guide their actions. The reconstructions indicate that uncertainty in the face of institutional transition represents a shared orientation problem. Teaching (supposed) school skills serves to reduce uncertainty and seems to guide action. It also shows that school ‘techniques’ (homework, completing tasks within specified time periods, etc.) are taught. To legitimise this, relevant school norms such as ‘independence’ are invoked later on. It becomes apparent how educational professionals implicitly and explicitly take up norms, but at the same time repeatedly try to invalidate them for the “Kita” context. The preparatory practice in the transition thus appears to be one that simultaneously emphasises and invalidates school readiness norms.

The findings briefly outlined here and further results are elaborated on the basis of interview excerpts. They are also discussed with regard to the discourses outlined above on ability standards, transitions from early childhood education to primary school, and childhood research in early childhood education. Among other things, the article addresses the extent to which school standards extend not only into the pre-school sector, but also into everyday educational practice in early childhood education in general.