Family Change and Early Childhood Development 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) |
