A prominent example is Global Early Childhood Development (ECD), which aims to foster economic growth by enhancing children’s brain capacities through modified parenting practices. Framed by slogans such as UNICEF’s “building brains, building futures,” these interventions aim to improve later school performance and adult productivity. However, the scientific basis of Global draws largely on research from Western middle-class contexts and neglects extensive ethnographic evidence documenting the diversity of parenting practices worldwide. 

Prof. Gabriel Scheidecker focuses on childhood, parenting support, and early childhood development interventions across diverse settings. In the first lecture of the colloquium ‘Anthropological Crossroads’, he critically examines the core assumptions of ECD, and argues for a stronger engagement of anthropology and related disciplines with behavior change interventions.

Gabriel Scheidecker is Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies (ISEK), University of Zurich, and leads the SNSF-funded project “Saving Brains? Applying Ethnography to Early Childhood Interventions in the Global South” (2023–2028).