Karen Thorpe

Professor Karen Thorpe is Deputy Director and Group Leader in Early Development, Education and Care at the Institute for Social Science Research, the University of Queensland. Her research examines the effects of children’s early life experiences on social, learning and health trajectories across the lifespan. Her particular interest is early childcare and education environments including family context, parent work, quality of care and education, and the early years workforce.

Karen was Foundation Psychologist on the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children at the University of Bristol, UK; led the evaluation of the Preparing School Trial for Queensland Government; led the Queensland team of the E4Kids study of quality in Australian Early Education and Care and; in partnership with Queensland Government, Goodstart Early Learning and the Creche and Kindergarten Association, led a study of the Australian ECEC workforce (ARC Linkage). She is chief investigator on the ARC Centres of Excellence (LCC -The Lifecourse Centre- focussing on disadvantage, and ACDC - Digital Child). In 2013 and again in 2019 Karen was named by the Australian Financial Review as among Australia’s 100 Women of Influence for the impacts of her research on educational and family policy.

What makes the a difference in the long-term? : Policy and practice lessons from large scale longitudinal studies of Early Childhood Education and Care in Australia

Australian children spend up to 10,000 hours in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) services before school entry. These hours matter. Early childhood is a critical period in human brain development during which social, emotional and conceptual learning experiences serve to shape the neural networks that underpin each child’s lifetime well-being, learning, productivity and social inclusion. For this reason, ECEC programs present a developmental opportunity if the quality of the experience provided is rich, but a developmental risk if the quality of experience provided is poor. But what is high quality? What specific practices? Importantly, What makes the difference in long-term educational outcomes?

I report on large-scale and longitudinal data from Australia that includes data linkage to individualised school records across primary and secondary education. The analyses identify specific practices in ECEC that predict ongoing education. The implications for resourcing, training and professional development, and educational equity, are discussed.