Sustainability in early interventions in Danish ECEC: A Critical Awareness of Assessment tools’ perspectives and consequences for children when regarded as their data-doppelganger

This study aims to critically explore assessment practices in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in Denmark,
often heralded for their potential to establish the foundations for systematic, sustainable, and evidence-based
pedagogies. Building upon existing literature on assessment and standardization in ECEC (ex. Robert-Holmes 2014,
Houmøller 2018, Franck et al 2022), this research contributes by analyzing assessment practices and the
implementation of standards in the everyday context of ECEC in Denmark. Assessment practices are theoretically
conceptualized as mundane practices (Bowker & Star 2000) negotiated and enacted (Ball 2011) in socio-material
practices (Law & Mol 1995, Fenwick 2015). The study is grounded in institutional ethnography (Smith 2005) and
implies observations, in-field conversations, and semi-structured interviews with professionals in two ECEC facilities.
The analysis was conducted within a socio-material focusing on 1) assessment practices as performed within
heterogeneous networks of relations and 2) the enactment of assessment results in pedagogical practice. The
research emphasize the pedagogical and ethical tensions pedagogues need to balance when enacting the standards
in practice. Participants' names are pseudonyms, ensuring confidentiality in accordance with the EECERA Ethical
Code. Analyses reveal that professionals navigate a delicate balance between loyalty to the indicators of assessment
tools, and pedagogical considerations for the specifity of the child and their parents. This delicate interplay is
characterized as highly porous and fragile. The study underscores the political and pedagogical imperative to refine
and nuance discussions and reflections on assessment practices, standardized tools, and their social and pedagogical
sustainability in the realm of ECEC.
assessment and standardization in ECEC, policies and practices of early intervention, enactment , pedagogy , social,
ethical and pedagogical sustainability.