Resumen de Early childhood education and careservices. A rout out of poverty? opportunities and challenges in asouthern-european city: Panel 15. S1.
Policy recommendations to address child poverty and social exclusion give priority for children from a disadvantaged background to have access to quality early childhood educationand care. However, vulnerable families tend to use less ECEC services and we do not know how these services actually improve their life chances. This case study shows an overview of the role of public ECEC services policies regarding child poverty in the city of Tarragona in the context of a financial and economic crisis. First, descriptive analysis of quantitative data at the local level generated by this research answers to what extent and which types of lowincome families benefit from public child care and how do the services adapt to the new types of publics. Second, through semi-structured interviews to ECEC managers and participant observation are carried out to understand the experiences and the barriers that low-income parents face to access the services and to point out the potentialities and the current limitations of these services when trying to be more socially inclusive for the low-income families that are already attending them