Continuity and Developmental Differentiation of Educational Beliefs Across the 0–6 Developmental Continuum: Parents’ and ECEC Professionals’ Representations of Early Childhood Education

Abstract

Continuity is a fundamental principle of integrated Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) systems, yet little is known about how adults’ educational beliefs vary across developmental references. The study examined developmental differentiation in educational beliefs when adults refer to children aged 0–3 versus 3–6 years and whether this differentiation varied across parents and ECEC professionals. Participants were 697 parents, 243 nursery educators, and 160 preschool teachers from ECEC services in Northern Italy. They completed two parallel versions of the Pre-K Survey of Beliefs and the Socialization Goals Scale. The two parallel Educational Beliefs forms showed metric and partial scalar invariance across developmental references. A mixed-design ANOVA showed less child-initiated beliefs for the 3–6 reference and a significant developmental-reference × respondent-role interaction of modest magnitude. Parents and nursery educators showed moderate within-person differentiation, whereas preschool teachers showed a small observed difference; an equivalence analysis did not establish statistical equivalence for preschool teachers. Item-level analyses indicated selective rather than uniform differentiation, with the largest shifts in developmental goals, learning processes, and the adult role. Psychological Autonomy was positively associated with child-initiated beliefs, whereas the role-specific developmental pattern remained virtually unchanged after adjustment for broader socialization goals. These findings support conceptualizing continuity across integrated 0–6 systems as coherence across developmentally differentiated expectations rather than representational uniformity.