On May 26, at the Facultat de Filosofia i Lletres of the UAB, the conference “Early Childhood Development interventions: A global movement in need of cross-cultural research,” organized by AFIN and delivered by Dr. Gabriel Scheidecker, Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies (ISEK), University of Zurich, took place.
The event brought together undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students, as well as researchers and faculty members from UAB.
In his presentation, Scheidecker reviewed the main contributions of Anthropology—particularly ethnographic and cross-cultural studies—to early childhood development research. He showed how these contributions are often minimized or excluded from the field, where biomedical and psychological approaches predominate, failing to consider the diversity of social and cultural environments in which childhoods grow and develop.
Drawing on his own research in Africa, Asia, and Europe, as well as a thorough review of initiatives promoted by governments and multilateral organizations around Global Early Childhood Development (Global ECD), Scheidecker examined the cultural limitations and biases of dominant childhood development models promoted by current policies and interventions of international agencies, highlighting their theoretical, methodological, practical, and ethical consequences.
His presentation sparked a lively debate among participants, highlighting the need to critically review what certain disciplines and institutions consider “evidence.” It also emphasized the urgency for anthropologists to engage more actively in these debates and to develop strategies to broaden audiences and demonstrate the value of anthropological evidence.
This line of reflection connects with discussions promoted by Scheidecker and other researchers in publications such as the special issue Ethnographic Evidence and Early Childhood Interventions of the journal Ethos, available in open access:
https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1111/(ISSN)1548-1352.ethnographic-evidence-early-childhood-interventions
This issue includes contributions from various anthropologists, including a commentary by Carolina Remorini:
https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/etho.12434