1. The gateway of family and education policy
Dr. Sigrid Leitner
Dr. des. Anneli Rüling

2. 1. How can the discoursive shift in care and education policy in D and UK be explained?
Scrutinizing political debates and discourses around the passing central bills on childcare policy:
D: Tagesbetreuungsausbaugesetz (2004)
UK: Childcare Bill (2005)

3. Questions and Methods
Questions: How are these reforms justified against the background of traditional/liberal approaches to the family?
How are educational and family policy aims interlinked in the arguments for those bills?
Methods:
Document analysis of central documents in the political process
4-5 expert interviews with key actors in the legislative process

4. Documents analysed for Germany
Coalition treaty of SPD and Bündnis 90/Die Grünen 2002
Parliamentary debates around the TAG
Party programmes of SPD and Bündnis 90/Die Grünen
Central documents of the Federal Ministry of Family affairs
Central scientific studies around ECEC in Germany (usually commissioned and published by the Federal Ministry)
Statements of central actors and lobbies concerning the TAG (different trade unions, organisation of the federal states and the municipalities, the churches)

5. Expert interviews conducted:
Dr. Karin Jurczyk, Head of the department of family policy, Deutsches Jugendinstitut, München
Petra Mackroth, vice-head of the family policy department in the Federal Ministery of family affairs (BMFSFJ) (former assistant of Renate Schmidt, Ministery of Family affairs)
Herr Saumweber, Scientific assistant of Ekin Deligöz, speaker on family policy of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen in the German Bundestag
Planned expert interviews :
Kerstin Griese, speaker on family policy, SPD, German Bundestag ( )
Ingrid Fischbach, CDU-CSU, German Bundestag (to be confirmed)

6. Preliminary results for Germany I:
The TAG is a key element of a new family policy strategy „sustainable family policy“
Within this strategy the ministry of family affairs planned and conducted a discoursive shift:
Family policy should become a „hard“ topic following an economic rationality
The economic reasoning includes: demographic arguments, human capital loss of qualified women and the importance of future human capital development
=> Re-Framing of ECEC with an economic reasoning

7. Preliminary results for Germany II: Instrumental use of research
Within this political strategy, the federal ministry commissioned scientific studies to „prove“ the economic benefit of ECEC as part of the overall campaign
Central role of international benchmarking studies which showed repeatedly the low performance of Germany in the international context
Little influence of the Lisbon strategy and Barcelona targets
=> International benchmarks play a central role in the political campaign

8. Problems in implementation: Limited competences of the central government in education policy
Education is a competence of the federal states
Quality in education can be enhanced through federal state policy – the national level is not governing the quality of education issue
The policy is weak: municipalities should provide „needs adequate“ childcare for 0-3 years – estimated 20%; the needs definition is left to the municipalities
SPD did not want/could not issue a „right“ to a childcare place for children 0-3 years as yet
Problems in financing – the state cannot give central money to municipalities – only to parents
=> Stronger need for campaign + awareness raising