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1.
This article troubles the established discourse of free choice and free play in early childhood education, and develops post-structural approaches to theorising children's agency in the context of institutional and relational power structures. It is widely accepted that planning a curriculum based on children's needs, interests and patterns of learning promotes agency, self-regulation and control. However, contemporary research extends this discourse through critical examination of child-centred and developmental perspectives, and by theorising children's agency as a means of enacting power relationships in play. Using naturalistic, interpretive methods for documenting children's choices of play activities, this small-scale study focuses on 10 children in an Early Years Foundation Stage setting in England. Combining contemporary sociocultural and post-structural theories, the findings indicate that children's choices are situated within shifting power structures and relationships, involving conflict, negotiation, resistance and subversion. These activities create opportunities for exercising and affirming group and individual agency. The study raises critical questions about how children make and manage their choices, and examines the implications for policy and practice in light of restrictive curriculum frameworks.  相似文献   

2.
The Playing Learning Child: Towards a pedagogy of early childhood   总被引:7,自引:2,他引:5  
From children's own perspective, play and learning are not always separate in practices during early years. The purpose of this article is, first, to scrutinise the background and character of early years education in terms of play and learning. Second, to elaborate the findings of several years of research about children's learning in preschool related to the curriculum of early years education and, finally, to propose a sustainable pedagogy for the future, which does not separate play from learning but draws upon the similarities in character in order to promote creativity in future generations. Introducing the notions of act and object of learning and play (by act we mean how children play and learn and with the object we mean what children play and learn) we will chisel out an alternative early childhood education approach, here called developmental pedagogy, based on recent research in the field of play and learning, but also related to earlier approaches to early education.  相似文献   

3.
Western research over the last decade has shown that early childhood (EC) teachers’ perspectives on the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the early years strongly shape young children's experiences in educational settings and affect the integration of ICT into the classroom. The research in China is scant however. This article reports a study of Chinese EC teachers’ views on the use of ICT in preschools. Data consist of illustrative original quotations generated from interviews with four teachers, as part of a larger study. This study shows that Chinese preschool teachers had an emerging understanding about social and technological impacts on the use of ICT in early childhood education (ECE), but they recognised the value of ICT for young children and themselves in a limited way. This restrained young children's active and meaningful use of ICT for early learning and development. We argue that there is a need to develop explicit ICT polices and curriculum guidelines for the ECE system that emphasise young children's active and creative use of ICT for early learning and development, and better support teacher learning.  相似文献   

4.
Abstract

Early childhood education has been characterised in recent times by discussion associated with the similarities, differences and various merits of developmental and sociocultural theory as theoretical informants to curriculum and educational practice. In the main, these discussions centre on the way each theory views development and positions the child as a learner. This article argues that the debate may be furthered by considering the extent to which each perspective is related to the other and draws on Kuhn's conceptualisation of the evolution of knowledge in communities of practice in order to examine the extent to which newer explanations for development are being considered in relation to traditional ideas. The article concludes with an emphasis on the idea that the evolution of knowledge concerned with children's development and learning is a process of continued growth and one that requires an active awareness as to how and why it is utilised and interpreted as an informant to early childhood education.  相似文献   

5.
The last decade has seen, in the policy arena, a broad global push for children to be treated as active participants in society rather than as the passive recipients of adult decisions and interventions. The topic of literacy learning and teaching has, however, been absent from much of the policy and literature on children's social participation. This paper is an exploratory foray into possible connections between literacy and citizenship from the perspective of young children and those responsible for their education. Drawing from both sociocultural and semiotic perspectives on literacy, this analysis crosses between institutional texts, ethnographic accounts and children's own representations of their places in the world. A hierarchical model of literacy development, which emphasises the teaching of basic decoding skills in the early years, is associated with a view of young children as future citizens rather than as active social participants. Recognising children's agency, and supporting their meaningful participation, requires literacies of social participation.  相似文献   

6.
7.
In this article, the authors suggest that current notions of advocacy in early childhood education should be expanded to include a view of young children as citizens. The authors ground their discussion in a how-to book project in Providence, Rhode Island, consider different concepts of children and citizenship, share commentary from City Hall and propose four key features of their perspective: (a) highlighting the civic nature of schools as central to the teaching and learning process; (b) focusing on young children's distinctive perspectives and competencies, not just their needs; (c) providing professional development around shared projects that promote literacy and higher order thinking skills; and (d) documenting children's learning in order to challenge assumptions about their capabilities and put forth an alternative image of teaching and learning.  相似文献   

8.
This article discusses the findings about pedagogical documentation which were drawn from a study which the author co-directed in a range of English early childhood education and care settings and which focused on children's views of the early years curriculum. The article poses questions provoked by the study and uses the work of Rinaldi and Carr to interrogate the English context for documenting early learning. The article analyses documentation in theoretical terms such as deciding, decentralising, disciplining, didactic and dialogue and also considers accounts by practitioners and researchers of practical strategies. The argument is illustrated with a selection of the data from the original study by Garrick et al. and contends that the purpose of pedagogical documentation should be to enable adult and child communicative cooperation, rather than to provide statements about children's progress which feed into the ‘discourses of quality in early childhood’.  相似文献   

9.
OP-ED     
There is a general consensus that too many US children are entering school without essential readiness skills. However, there is a lack of consensus as to what constitutes readiness and a corresponding lack of consensus as to the type of early childhood experience that is most likely to prepare children for academic success. This paper offers a perspective, grounded in theory and practice, on issues of readiness and education during the preschool and kindergarten years. This perspective involves a view of human development that stresses the role of adult involvement in young children's learning and emphasizes the preschool years as atime for building cognitive skills that will serve as essential foundations for later academic learning. Images drawn from practice in Korean early childhood classrooms illustrate how teacherdirected activities may foster preschool children's development of these essential cognitive foundations in a developmentally appropriate manner.  相似文献   

10.
Twenty-two 5- and 6-year-old children and their parents in one playschool in Reykjavik participated in this study designed to shed light on children's and parents’ views about their early childhood program. Group interviews, children's photographs, children's drawings, and a questionnaire administered as a game were used to elicit children's perspectives and opinions. Findings revealed considerable agreement between parents and their children about playschool as a safe haven for children and about the importance of playschool in education and life-long learning. Both groups reported that playschool emphasised learning rules for behaviour, communication, and play. Of their playschool experiences, children placed highest value on friendships with peers, freedom to choose what to do, and playing. Parents’ priorities included having their children learn to interact well with others; show respect, affection, and honesty; and gain self-confidence and positive self-image. Both parents and children viewed playing and outdoor activities as important parts of playschool life.  相似文献   

11.
Young children from around the world are accessing the internet in ever increasing numbers. The rapid increase in internet activity by children aged 4–5 years in particular is due to the ease access enabled them by touchscreen internet‐enabled tablet technologies. With young children now online, often independently of adult supervision, the need for early childhood cyber‐safety education is becoming urgent. In this paper, we report the early findings from a project aimed at examining the development of cyber‐safety education for young children. We argue that cyber‐safety education for young children cannot be effectively developed without first considering young children's thinking about the internet. In this paper, we use Vygotsky's ideas about the development of mature concepts from the merging of everyday and scientific concepts. We identify the potential range of everyday concepts likely to form the basis of young children's thinking about the internet as a platform for cyber‐safety education in the early years.  相似文献   

12.
This article reports on a small-scale investigation of how teachers organise goal-oriented learning in Swedish preschools. The revised Swedish curriculum (National Agency for Education 2011) highlights the need for children to develop their mathematics skills through activities that integrate play and learning. This study investigates how different types of activities contribute to children developing their understanding of the concepts ‘half’ and ‘double’. Three preschool teachers participated in a developmental project in which they conduct teaching in accordance with the Variation Theory of Learning. The pedagogical contexts they bring into being reveal important insights for early childhood education. The pedagogical context that can be realised in the planned activities limits or favours the learning process and the success of the theoretical aspirations for the session. This article discusses the idea of ‘teaching’ and how to facilitate conceptual development in a goal-oriented but child-centred practice. The main results show that play is central in early childhood education, and that problem-solving as a means for mathematics education needs to be problematised and used with sensitivity to the children's intentions and perspectives.  相似文献   

13.
This paper considers perceptions of children’s learning and classroom practice to support learning in the Pakistani early years educational context. In Pakistan, there is a growing focus on quality provision of early childhood education and building early childhood education teacher capacity. Over the course of one academic year, data were collected from kindergarten teachers in a Pakistani urban school through interviews and classroom observations as part of a larger study. Findings presented in this paper are based on the interview data of two teachers in the sample, a novice and an experienced teacher. Data analysis examined their perceptions of kindergarten children’s learning and of their practice to support kindergarten children’s learning, taking into consideration the gender perspective. The results showed tensions in the teachers’ perceptions which contrasted between a constructivist approach and a teacher-directed skills approach. Perceptions of their practice reflected a formal, teacher-directed approach rather than a constructivist approach and a teacher-directed skills approach to teaching. Several factors, including deep-rooted perceptions as well as curriculum structure, time, number of staff and resources, contributed to this.  相似文献   

14.
This paper argues that there is no meaningful distinction between care and education for young children so that the early childhood field should be renamed early childhood educare. The predominant theoretical framework for early childhood philosophy and curriculum has been Piaget's theory. Piaget's theory describes development as determining current cognitive competence and influencing what children are capable of learning. Children are seen as natural scientists who investigate the world and thereby broaden their understanding. Teachers are expected to stand back and provide resources for children's autonomous learning but not to interfere with it. The paper argues that Vygotsky's theory as applied to the responsive social contexts provided in early childhood educare should be given more consideration because it gives more attention to the importance of the social and cultural context on children's thinking than Piaget. Vygotsky saw learning as driving development and the development of thinking as a shared process rather than an individual one. Children are capable of far more competent performance when they have assistance from adults in their zone of proximal development so adults take a reactive and participatory role. The paper discusses the role of language, the internalisation of interpersonal processes, the importance of intersubjectivity, the need for scaffolding in the zone of proximal development, and the role of both adult and peer tutors according to the author's interpretation of Vygotsky's theory.  相似文献   

15.

The purpose of the study was to examine, using an ethnographic perspective, young children's gender behaviors. Four children, 3 to 5 years old, are described using videotaped observations of a university laboratory preschool. This study revealed, through individualprofiles of the children, that gender behaviors in early childhood are constructed by the individual interacting with her his social world. Also, gender behaviors were found to be integrated with other social processes, namely, student and peer behaviors. Finally, sociocultural and poststructuralist perspectives revealed the obvious and subtle gender behaviors of young children. Thus, researchers using ethnographic methods can explain the complexity in which children experience becoming a person .  相似文献   

16.
This study investigated early childhood teachers’ beliefs about information and communications technology (ICT) and play in preschool, as well as their confidence in integrating ICT in the classroom. A 28-item questionnaire was compiled and administered to 190 early childhood teachers in Greece. Although ICT play (which can provide learning opportunities) has largely replaced traditional childhood play, in Greece, there is inadequate integration of ICT in early childhood education. In this study, two factors were extracted: ‘playing with ICT as an effective mode of learning and developing children's technological competence’ and ‘ICT use as free play’. The fewer the years of teaching experience and the higher the teachers’ computer self-efficacy, the stronger was the view that ICT play is not just free play. Teachers’ beliefs and confidence affect their classroom practices and, consequently, the children's learning. Viewing ICT as a mode of learning that should be embedded in the curriculum is expected to lead to ICT integration in a teacher's daily practices. The implications for in-service teacher training are therefore discussed.  相似文献   

17.
This study seeks to determine how and to what extent the core principles of the early childhood education programme at Levinsky College of Education in Israel were applied by a third-year student teacher in a traditional fieldwork placement. At the beginning of the school year, the student planned to engage two small groups of children in her field placement in a learning project focused on children's literature related to witches, believing the children would be enthusiastic about the topic. Despite employing a meticulous traditional teaching plan, her attempts to engage the children failed. This led her to seek advice and form an authentic emergent teaching plan that was influenced by the children's preferences and social conflicts in the group. Furthermore, the student gained the teaching staff's approval and encouragement to develop a kindergarten curriculum very different from the traditional one. In this paper, we show an evidence of the learning processes undergone by both the children and the student.  相似文献   

18.
Children's everyday ideas form critical foundations for science learning yet little research has been conducted to understand and legitimize these ideas, particularly from an international perspective. This paper explores children's everyday ideas about the environment across the US, Singapore and China to understand what they reveal about children's relationship to the environment and discuss its implications for science teaching and learning. A social constructivist lens guides research, and a visual methodology is used to frame children's realities. Participants' ages range from elementary to middle school, and a total of 210 children comprized mainly of Asians and Asian Americans were sampled from urban settings. Drawings are used to elicit children's everyday ideas and analyzed inductively using open coding and categorizing of data. Several categories support existing literature about how children view the environment; however, novel categories such as affect also emerged and lend new insight into the role that language, socio-cultural norms and perhaps ethnicity play in shaping children's everyday ideas. The findings imply the need for (a) a change in the role of science teachers from knowledge providers to social developers, (b) a science curriculum that is specific to learners' experiences in different socio-cultural settings, and (c) a shift away from inter-country comparisons using international science test scores.  相似文献   

19.
One-to-one interviewing is one of the most powerful ways of exploring young children's thinking. While there are a few studies which report the use of this pedagogic strategy by preservice teachers, more are needed. This paper describes an early childhood mathematics education assignment which preservice teachers in a teacher-education college in Ireland undertake with four- and five-year-old children. It presents an analysis of data from a selected sample of 58 preservice teachers' reflections on their dialogues with individual children. It describes how the preservice teachers engaged with the process of interviewing the children; how they reflected on their interactions with the children; their reflections on the children's engagement; and their reflections on young children's mathematics generally. Some dilemmas faced by the participants in the course of the interviewing are highlighted. Findings demonstrate the integrated nature of the knowledge that early childhood teachers need to teach early childhood mathematics effectively. The learning arising from this assignment relates to early childhood mathematics thinking, to the psycho-social nature of learning in early childhood and to pedagogy in early childhood education.  相似文献   

20.
Children's transition to school is a key issue in early years of education. Research in this field points to the counterintuitive possibility that the transition to school may actually lead to a reduction rather than a facilitation of children's agency. The paper presents findings of a longitudinal comparative ethnography on children's transition from fields of early childhood education to primary school in England and Germany. Building on theoretical concepts of the sociology of childhood, the study uses the concept of children's complicity to explore how children's agency is embedded in institutional, interactional orders and how it changes during transition. The findings indicate the importance of the structure of keeping the group of children together during transition. Not only is children's participation in the new social situation in school mediated by peer cultural routines. The paper presents the argument that the complicity children develop with their teachers' expectations takes different forms when they can rely on peer cultural routines.  相似文献   

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