Governing Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in the European Union

This dissertation examines how Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) is governed in the European Union (EU), comparing governance in Germany and Sweden over 2000–2020. It develops a conceptual framework distinguishing orientation and coordination to analyze governance patterns. For analytical purposes, four ideal-type governance patterns are defined – fragmentation, fragmegration, fragtegration, and integration – reflecting different combinations of diverging or converging orientations and coordination. Using a multilevel comparative design, the study integrates qualitative data and quantitative network methods – including Social Network Analysis and Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGM) – to map networks and test hypotheses about governance patterns. Empirically, the findings reveal different pathways but increasing convergence in ECEC governance across the EU, Germany, and Sweden. At the EU level, ECEC governance evolved from fragmentation to a more integrated pattern by 2020, marked by a shift toward educational objectives and alignment of coordination tools, e.g., the Open Method of Coordination. Germany’s ECEC governance, historically fragmented by federal structures and welfare-oriented values, underwent significant change: the 2000s saw educational values added to a care-focused system and expanded access fostering a dual-earner model. This produced converging orientations, i.e. shared goals on expansion and quality, while coordination remained partly disjointed. By 2020, Germany had improved coherence through quality initiatives and better intergovernmental coordination, achieving a semi-integrated “fragtegration” pattern, which implies aligned values with fragmented coordination. Sweden, by contrast, entered the 2000s with a unified “educare” system but faced new market-driven decentralization, causing some local divergence. Over time, Sweden refocused on common educational quality goals and introduced trust-based recentralization for oversight. By 2020, Sweden achieved a fully integrated governance pattern, aligning strong educational orientations with cohesive national-local coordination. The study concludes that while Germany and Sweden followed different trajectories – Germany ending in partial convergence and Sweden in full convergence – both progressed by first aligning normative orientations and then coordination strategies. These insights underscore the utility of the orientation and coordination framework for understanding governance change. Policy implications highlight the role of EU initiatives, e.g., quality benchmarks, in catalyzing national reforms. The dissertation offers recommendations at international, EU, and national levels to strengthen ECEC governance, including improved multi-level coordination, sustainable funding, workforce development, curriculum standards, and robust evaluation. Ultimately, ECEC governance has become increasingly interconnected across governance levels, calling for ongoing efforts to harmonize objectives and reinforce coordination across EU and national systems.