Early childhood education programs neglect social skills that are important for living and working together. This is shown by a study, which examined educational policy guidelines in more than 50 countries worldwide. The importance of children's socio-economic circumstances for educational success also plays only a subordinate role in the programs.
Education in early childhood can impart skills that are important throughout life, as numerous international studies have shown. Both for the cohesion of societies and for today's professional world, it is important that children learn to cooperate, to develop a basic understanding of tolerance and respect and to solve problems together even before they start school. In turn, structural conditions, especially the socio-economic circumstances in which children grow up, are of great importance for educational success.
However, researchers at the Technical University of Munich, the University of Luxembourg and the Autonomous University of Barcelona repeatedly noticed that social skills - to which the researchers also refer as citizenship skills, as they are crucial for the functioning of a society - and educational prerequisites were rarely or not at all included in early childhood education programs. They have therefore investigated for the first time whether one can draw a global picture of the fundamental attitudes on which these programs are based. The research team analyzed more than 90 official documents from 53 countries on all continents as well as from the European Union and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The documents, which span the period from 1999 to 2023, were primarily guidelines, education plans and similar publications that outline fundamental education policy orientations.
Focus on cognitive skills
The study shows that early childhood education programs focus on cognitive skills, such as language, information processing and spatial awareness. In contrast, social skills, which are important for living and working together, only play a subordinate role. However, socio-emotional skills, i.e. the recognition and management of one's one and other people's emotions, were included in the position papers of the international organizations and of some countries.
Programs worldwide predominantly view talent, effort and personal responsibility as central to later educational success. Factors that cannot be influenced by the individual are hardly mentioned. These primarily include socio-economic conditions, such as parents' educational background and income, as well as personality traits and stressful life events such as forced migration or illness. The importance of support from family, friends, teachers and society is also rarely mentioned.
"Structural factors were ignored"
"The study results show that many early childhood education programs worldwide have two shortcomings. The idea that individual success is based on talent and effort is partly correct. However, it ignores how strongly success depends on structural factors. And if social skills are missing from educational plans, children are deprived of the promotion of skills that are of great importance for their personal and professional lives," says study author Prof. Samuel Greiff from the Chair of Educational Monitoring and Effectiveness at TUM. "However, the dominant worldview is also remarkable on a societal level. In times when we are concerned about social cohesion and the understanding of democracy, not promoting the necessary skills is counterproductive."
The study team believes that further research is needed to investigate the extent to which the educational policy guidelines are reflected in early childhood education practice. "At the individual level, children may internalize the idea that anything can be achieved with effort, without understanding that success also depends on their fellows or simply on chance," says Samuel Greiff. "At the system level, we see the danger that, in some countries, competition is already emerging in daycare centers and kindergartens as to which institutions invest the most in children's cognitive performance, with other educational goals being neglected."
Bobrowicz K, Gracia P, Teuber Z, Greiff S (2025) The meritocracy trap: Early childhood education policies promote individual achievement far more than social cohesion . PLOS One 20(7): e0326021.
Prof. Samuel Greiff is Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Centre for International Student Assessment (ZIB) at TUM . With its comparative studies, the center aims to make an important contribution to the quality assurance of education. It is responsible for the German part of the PISA studies.
