Suchergebnisse

Zur Bekämpfung der COVID-19-Pandemie wurden in den meisten Ländern der Welt ab Mitte März 2020 die frühkindlichen Bildungs- und Betreuungseinrichtungen (ECEC) sowie Schulen geschlossen. Betrachtet man die Kita- und Schulschließungen in internationaler Perspektive, so weisen sie allerdings – trotz des weltweiten Einsatzes dieser Präventionsmaßnahme – eine beachtliche Varianz auf. Dieser Beitrag stellt einen konzeptionellen Rahmen vor, um die spezifischen Formen der nationalen Kita- und Schulschließungen sowie der Wiederöffnungen zu unterscheiden. Insbesondere die Modi der Wiederöffnung spiegeln dabei länderspezifische Abwägungen verschiedener Gesichtspunkte wider: Strategien der Pandemieprävention und Public Health, Bildung, soziale Ungleichheiten und Vereinbarkeit von Familie und Beruf. Anhand von vier Länderbeispielen (Deutschland, Österreich, Irland, Slowenien) werden die gewählten Modi und die dahinterstehenden Motive illustriert. (DIPF/Orig.) ; In the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, most countries around the globe closed early childhood education and care (ECEC) facilities and schools, beginning in March 2020. Taking a closer look at those closures from an international perspective, however, they exhibit a striking cross-country variation. This contribution presents a conceptual framework to distinguish the specific forms of national ECEC and school closures as well as their re-opening. The re-openings in particular show country-specific considerations of different motives: public health and pandemic prevention strategies, education, social inequalities, and work-family reconciliation. The examples of four countries (Germany, Austria, Ireland, Slovenia) serve to illustrate the different modes chosen and the motives behind them. (DIPF/Orig.)

AbstractThe economic crisis has significantly challenged national welfare states and has often led to retrenchment. The question arises how countries have reacted to the crisis in the area of family policy – not directly connected to rising unemployment and also not as demanding for state spending as for example the pension system. This article analyzes family policy reforms during the crisis in three small European welfare states – Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovenia. Focusing on the 'rationale' behind the reforms, it aims to explore how family policy was affected by the crisis and whether the crisis gave rise to new policy pathways and ideas in the area. The exploratory case studies of reforms conducted in the three countries between 2009 and 2013 show that everywhere the pre‐crisis policy pathways were also continued in the period of crisis. The reforms were framed by diverse paradigms related to national‐specific contexts along with newly emerged austerity arguments. The Czech Republic shows a continued focus on a neo‐liberal paradigm, utilizing the crisis to introduce further residual measures, i.e. mostly negative re‐familializing reforms, mixed with de‐familializing policies based on the workfare paradigm. Strong crisis‐related discourse in Slovenia was accompanied by diverse austerity measures, which strengthened the social dimension of family policy and weakened a de‐familialistic effect of the pre‐crisis reforms. Austria, much less affected by the crisis, continues to combine social investment and 'freedom of choice' paradigms, introducing an ambivalent amalgam of positive familialistic and de‐familialistic family policy reforms.