How Policy Affects Early Childhood Care and Development.

The programme is a community-based intervention, capitalizing upon women's networks through
the use of group discussion sessions. Especially in sociocultural contexts where close-knit family
and community ties exist, as in Turkey and many parts of the developing world, it makes sense
for an enrichment programme to build on these ties as support mechanisms. (Kagitcibasi 1988)
These mechanisms would be expected to continue to provide support to the women after the
completion of the programme.
The Turkish Early Enrichment Project
The origins of the Mother-Child Education Programme lie in the Turkish Early Enrichment
Project, a research project conducted between 1982 and 1986 by Cigdem Kagitcibasi, Diane
Sunar and Sevda Bekman of Bogazici University. (Kagitcibasi, Sunar & Bekman 1988) The
project, involving early childhood enrichment and mother training in low income areas of
Istanbul, set out to assess the impact of an optimal combination of educational preschool care
and home intervention on the overall development of socioeconomically disadvantaged urban
children. Both centre-based and home-based enrichment were studied, separately and in
combination.
The study was conducted in five low-income shantytown areas of Istanbul where the majority of
the population were blue-collar workers or involved in the marginal economy. The population
was mostly of rural origins, having migrated to the city in search of employment. The main reason
for the choice of these areas was the existence of factories employing over 300 women and thus
required by law to provide a child care unit. Six daycare centres catering to low-income children
were chosen. The children were three and five years of age. Of the sample, one third of the
children were enrolled in educational nursery schools, one third in custodial care centres and the
other third in home care with no preschool education. Some of the children in each group were
randomly selected and given a home intervention in the form of a Mother Training Programme.
Mother training had two elements: a programme to foster social and personality development of
the child and a programme to foster the cognitive development of the child. The former was
addressed through group discussions on topics designed to increase the mother's sensitivity to the
child's social and emotional needs and to help her to foster the child's social and personality
growth. The programme to foster cognitive development was a Turkish translation and
adaptation of HIPPY (Home Intervention Programme for Preschool Youngsters) developed by
the Research Institute of Innovation in Education at Hebrew University, Jerusalem. (Lombard
1981) As a home-based enrichment approach, the programme focused on three main areas of
cognitive development (language, sensory and perceptual discrimination skills and problemsolving)
with materials provided for educational activities in each of these areas.
In the second and third years of the project, the Mother Training Programme consisted of
biweekly home visits and group meetings that were held on alternate weeks. The programme to
foster social and personality development of the child took place in the fortnightly group
meetings through guided group discussions. The topics in the first year were based on children's
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