To Örebro University

In European countries, early childhood professionals are trained in a wide variety of ways. This article sheds light on these variations by examining the evolution of skill formation systems for early childhood professionals in two resource-rich Western countries in the global north with similar pedagogical practices: Switzerland and Sweden. These countries stand for two very different training regimes in the field of early childhood education and care (ECEC). While the preschool professionals (that is, preschool core practitioners) in Sweden today is trained at universities, in Switzerland a workplace-based form of vocational education and training at a secondary level is the standard way to qualify childcare staff for younger children. Depending on the region, however, there have also been school-based solutions, which today are positioned on a tertiary level.

Using a path dependency approach, this article attempts at explaining these differences by examining how these different solutions developed historically. The different developments for the crèches and daycare centre as well as the reforms in the kindergarten sector are taken into account. For Switzerland, it should also be kept in mind that cantonal developments vary greatly and that language regions play an important role.

In historical institutionalism, the reconstruction of different training regimes is a common subject. In methodological terms, this approach means identifying important critical junctures where national developments have taken a certain path. Unlike the literature on historical institutionalism, however, we do not examine the development of entire national educational systems, but concentrate on the forms in one field. We thus focus on dominant corporate actors and interest groups that have advocated a certain form of education in the field of early childhood education and care. We ask by what means these actors tried to achieve their goals, how private organisations, professional organizations, municipalities and central governments were involved, and what role laws and regulations played. The most important contexts these actors had to deal with were, first, institutional developments, i.e. the expansion of childcare centres or preschools. Secondly, we take account of developments on the labour market and the labour market policy demands that have accompanied this expansion. The main concern here was to increase the participation of women in the labour market. A third central context are the public demands on the central actors in the field, such as media reports, scandals, etc. These should also be taken into account where possible, since they determine the discursive field in which developments take place.