Promoting global ECD top-down and bottom-up

Abstract

Early childhood science and intervention (ECSI) or simply early childhood development (ECD) is now a multi-billion-dollar industry that seeks to export one form of family model, parenting practices, and perspective of child development to the rest of the world. This practice occurs through the efforts of agencies such as the World Health Organization, United Nations Children's Fund, the World Bank Group, and the LEGO Foundation. As a result, Gabriel Scheidecker and colleagues (2023) are justified to characterize ECSI as global ECD that seeks to improve the brains of children in the majority world to break the vicious cycle of poverty. I complement Scheidecker et al.’s (2023) arguments by highlighting a key link that sustains global ECD—the academics and practitioners from the majority world who, knowingly or unknowingly, perpetuate this practice. In this commentary, I discuss why and how such academics and practitioners contribute to the practice of global ECD.