The Capabilities Approach: An Alternative for Valuing Early Education and Children’s Well-Being

• In Event: Using Humanistic Economics and the Capabilities Approach to Rethink Early Childhood Educational Research, Practices, and Policies

Abstract

Recent studies on the effectiveness of early childhood programs use a human capital model which posits that increases in education and skill lead to increases in the human productivity, and in turn, to economic productivity. The model reflects the tenets of neoliberal economic and educational policies which focus on equalizing educational resources and then using cost benefit analysis to assess their effectiveness as is done for early childhood programs. When economic outcomes are used as a measure of well-being and program effectiveness, the goal of investment in individuals is economic return. Individuals are seen as a means to economic productivity, and not an end in themselves. Neoliberals offer their view as the philosophical, economic, and moral bases for early education.

The capabilities approach outlined by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum offers an alternative conceptualization of human well-being and early education. Its central tenets are that people have the freedoms “to choose the lives they have reason to value” (1992, p. 81) and that they are active agents in making choices from among opportunities. In Nussbaum’s view, the approach moves away from traditional economic measures of productivity and utility to a focus on options and freedoms which have intrinsic value. Individuals are seen as ends with intrinsic value, not means to economic ends. The capabilities approach challenges neoliberal views by focusing not on individuals’ economic productivity but rather on individuals’ capabilities, that is, their freedoms to choose what they can do or be.

The paper’s first section describes the human capital approach and its use in neoliberal policy for the educational and economic justification of early education programs. Next a brief review of cost benefit analysis of early childhood programs is presented. Much of this research has been conducted by the economist, James Heckman who notes that interventions for disadvantaged children can be cost-effective remedies that can raise productivity in schools and the workplace. He believes that increasing education and skills are keys to improving a modern economy.

The second section offers two main critiques of the human capital approach. First, the approach is economistic because the benefits, goals, and purposes of education, and an individual’s motivation for acquiring education are based on economic reasons. Actions taken for other reasons, religious, cultural, ethical, among others, are unaccounted for. Second, the approach is entirely instrumental because education, skills and knowledge are valued only to the extent that they contribute to increased economic productivity. In sum, the human capital approach’s focus on economic returns limits our understanding of the full and complex contribution early education makes to human well-being.

The final section outlines the key features of Sen’s capabilities approach and how it provides an alternative framework for conceptualizing development and children’s well-being and as such challenges the human capital approach by providing a more expansive foundation for philosophical, economic and moral bases of early childhood programs.

Author

• Cary A. Buzzelli, Indiana University - Bloomington