Dissertation: Early childhood education supports learning among children from disadvantaged backgrounds – also in Finland
Universal early childhood education and care can improve school performance among children from low socioeconomic backgrounds and children with immigrant backgrounds also in Finland. This is shown in a doctoral dissertation by Markus Laaninen at the University of Turku.
The dissertation of Markus Laaninen, doctoral researcher at the Flagship Centre for Research on Inequality, Interventions and New Welfare State (INVEST), is based on three sub-studies examining the association between participation in early childhood education and care and children’s later learning outcomes and speech development among children from different backgrounds in Finland and other Nordic countries.
Previous international studies have shown that early childhood education and care is associated with educational outcomes particularly among children from disadvantaged family backgrounds. Early childhood education and care has also been found to reduce learning gaps between children with immigrant and non-immigrant backgrounds. This has been linked to the ability of early childhood education and care to support early language acquisition.
– However, previous studies conducted in Finland have not found evidence that early childhood education and care particularly improves educational outcomes among children in disadvantaged positions, Laaninen says.
Two of Laaninen’s studies showed that early childhood education and care can promote educational outcomes particularly among children from low socioeconomic backgrounds and children with immigrant backgrounds also in Finland.
– Early childhood education and care can therefore promote equality of opportunity also in countries where the system is universal and available to everyone, Laaninen says.
One of the sub-studies found that the longer children received the home care allowance, the lower their grades in their native language in the final certificate of comprehensive school were in families where parents had a low level of education or an immigrant background.
In another sub-study, Laaninen examined speech production among children of early childhood education age.
– Errors in speech production tests at the age of four were less likely among children of low-educated parents who spent the greatest number of weekly hours in early childhood education and care, Laaninen explains.
The comparative Nordic sub-study produced a different kind of result. Laaninen examined the relationship between reading literacy among 15-year-olds and the age at which they started early childhood education and care. The best-performing young people were those who had started early childhood education and care at the age of 2–3. On average, they performed better than those who had started earlier or only after the age of four.
– However, the results of this sub-study did not show that an early start in early childhood education and care particularly benefits children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds in any of the Nordic countries, Laaninen says.
In Finland, public debate over home care and early childhood education and care periodically becomes heated. Despite this, the topic has been studied surprisingly little in Finland.
According to Laaninen, the findings of the dissertation partly suggest that early childhood education and care has the potential to reduce educational disparities between children from different backgrounds also in Finland.
– However, the differing findings between the sub-studies highlight the need for further research. In particular, more data are needed to better account for the selection of children into early childhood education and care and to follow the same children from childhood into adulthood, Laaninen says.
Master of Social Sciences Markus Laaninen will publicly defend his doctoral dissertation Universal Early Education and Educational Outcomes: The Role of Family Background at the University of Turku on Friday, 15 May 2026 at 13.00 (University of Turku, Publicum, Pub2 lecture hall, Assistentinkatu 7, Turku, Finland).
The opponent will be Professor Eva Österbacka from Åbo Akademi University, and the custos will be Professor Jani Erola from the University of Turku. The defence will be conducted in English. The field of the dissertation is sociology.