When a child from a disadvantaged background starts school, they generally have a poorer command of language than a child from a privileged background. This disadvantage will hinder their learning throughout their school years, increase their risk of dropping out and have an impact on their future living conditions. However, a great deal of research suggests that this situation can be addressed from early childhood onwards, for example by introducing high-quality educational programmes in nurseries. The Parler Bambin programme aims to train nursery staff to enhance their knowledge and daily practices in the field of language and language interaction, thereby improving young children’s language development. The programme aims to reduce these early inequalities in language development, with the hope, in the long term, of reducing educational and socio-economic inequalities. To carry out this study, we conducted a large-scale randomised évaluation across 94 nurseries throughout mainland France, following children from disadvantaged families.We worked with these nurseries over a three-year period to assess both short-term and longer-term effects.
Tackling inequalities from early childhood: a large-scale evaluation of the Parler Bambin programme
Cette étude effectue l’évaluation des effets du programme Parler Bambin sur les pratiques des professionnelles et sur le développement des enfants.
Reference IPP Policy Brief No. 72
Presentation
Key Results
- Following the training, the professionals largely adopt the principles and practices of Parler Bambin: they have more stimulating and meaningful interactions with the children. However, this change in practice struggles to be sustained over time.
- Parler Bambin does not appear to have an effect on children’s language development but does have a slight positive short-term impact on their socio-emotional development (self-confidence, relationships with others). This effect is not sustained in the long term.
- There are several possible explanations. Perhaps the change in practice among nursery staff trained in Parler Bambin was not sufficiently sustained over time to produce the expected effects on children’s language development. It may also be that the interventions promoted by the programme, in a nursery setting where staff are already doing a great deal, do not have a significant effect on this language development. Finally, it is possible that the tools used to measure children’s language development are not sensitive enough to detect certain changes in the children.
