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Implementation of a comprehensive intervention was followed by improved employee perceptions of the company's safety standards and the psychosocial work environment, as well as by substantial reductions in the incidence of eczema and occupational accidents.

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This paper discusses trends in contemporary Danish early childhood education and care (ECEC). Data are various policy documents, along with material from ongoing research projects in which the authors are involved. It is claimed that contemporary policy on Danish day care services has a tendency to emphasize narrow curriculum improvements and standardized testing. The democratic dimensions are still relatively strong, but at the moment these dimensions are interpreted within a skills-and-testing framework, which is leading to a situation where the political masquerades as the technical.Keywords: Denmark; policy; day care services; curriculum; social pedagogyThe claims and viewpoints in this paper are linked to research projects and paradigms that we, as a research unit, are currently involved in. We will start by sketching this material to provide a research context for the debate that follows.Two distinct approaches to early childhood education and care can be identified (OECD, 2001(OECD, , 2006: the early education approach and the social pedagogy approach.The early education approach generally results in a more centralizing and academic strategy towards curriculum content and methodology, while the social pedagogy tradition remains more local, child-centered and holistic.Broström (Broström, 2002(Broström, , 2006a(Broström, , 2006b(Broström, , 2009b) is working to develop a possible new paradigm in early childhood education and care. Departing from a traditional Danish perspective of social pedagogy, Broström is reaching for curriculum objectives such as children's all-round personal development, well-being, participation and critical thinking by bridging the concepts of care, upbringing and teaching into a critical framework oriented towards education for democracy. He does not shrink from understanding his proposal for an ECEC curriculum theory in relation to the teaching of con- Aarhus University 3 THE DANISH SCHOOL OF EDUCATION, AARHUS UNIVERSITY -THE RESEARCH UNIT OF CHILDHOOD, LEARNING AND CURRICULUM STUDIES tent, and thus points toward the early education position, but at the same time, he brings care and children's perspectives to the forefront. This rethinking of the social pedagogy approach is consistent with the policy statements made by the Danish committee on starting school (Skolestartsudvalget, 2006), and both challenges day care professionals to reflect on curriculum theory and challenges primary school teachers to maintain and nurture a caring dimension in their teaching practices. Department of Curriculum Research The Danish School of EducationRecent developments in several fields of research including social and cultural psychology, critical sociology and neuropsychology suggest that young children are biologically prepared for life and yet they are shaped by and completed through each person's active participation in socio-cultural environments and activities (Bråten, 2009; Stern, 2004) This provides postmodern research with the following ground rules: 1) To conduct rese...