Seminars underway on early childhood and inequality in Israel

The first in a series of ten virtual monthly seminars on early childhood and inequality in Israel was held on 15 October 2020, with 20 participants from sectors including education, academia and government.

The ten seminars will allow professionals from different fields to exchange knowledge, experiences and ideas for new collaborations.

The first seminar was led by Professor Yossi Shavit, Chair of the Taub Center Initiative on Early Childhood Development and Inequality (IECDI), and featured guest lectures on neurology, psychology, sociology, medicine and economics.

Future seminars will cover areas such as demographics, legislation, educational frameworks, health services and differences between populations. Participants will discuss research, theory and practical tools to apply their new interdisciplinary knowledge in promoting concrete policies.

Daniella Ben-Attar, the Bernard van Leer Foundation’s Country Representative in Israel, said:

“We hope that by developing these participants’ knowledge base, we will be cultivating a new generation of leaders for early childhood in Israel and helping to forge a network of support among them.”

IECDI was set up in August 2019 with the support of the Bernard van Leer Foundation, the Beracha Foundation and Yad Hanadiv. Its goal is to create a base of empirical research on early childhood and inequality in Israel. The Taub Center is one of Israel’s leading non-profit, non-partisan social policy think tanks.