A perfect 10: Why Sweden comes out on top in early child development programming.
Sweden ranked first in the United Nations Children's Fund 2008 league table of early childhood education and care. In a book published 74 years previously, Crisis in the Population Question, Alva and Gunnar Myrdal outlined many of the features that were later assessed by the United Nations Children's Fund. Three aspects may have affected the implementation of Myrdal's ideas. First, the Social Democratic Party has been in power for 85% of the time since 1932. They often had to form coalitions with other parties that supported a nonpartisan stance. Second, according to evidence from the World Values Survey, Swedes are more individualistic than people in any of the other 64 societies included in that study. The State is expected to create social conditions on equal terms for individuals to realize their own goals. Finally, schools and other social services are managed by 290 semi-independent municipalities. Thus, reforms can be tested in a few municipalities before others follow suit.
Swedish National Institute of Public Health, Stockholm, Sweden.
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