Children in relation: Rethinking early childhood education

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC, 1986; Bredekamp, 1987) has published guidelines which define “developmentally appropriate” practice for all children birth through eight. These guidelines have now come under criticism, however, for a variety of reasons. Researchers have argued that they present a false impression of consensus (Walsh, 1991), that they are premised on a developmental theory characterized by ethnocentric bias (Bowman & Stott, 1994), and that they represent cultural values that are not universally shared (Jipson, 1991; Wiliiams, 1994; Phillips, 1994). This article holds likewise that the promulgation of guidelines based on universalist assumptions places racial, ethnic, and linguistic “minority” children and parents at a disadvantage and contributes to the very processes that early childhood educators seek to remedy. After reviewing an extensive research literature which shows children from traditionally disadvantaged groupsin relation, the article concludes that the poor scholastic performance of disproportionate numbers of children should be attributed to interactional and relational factors rather than to innate capabilities or to parental “inadequacy.” An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association, August 14, 1993, Miami, FL.     

Issues in early childhood education

Abstract

This paper raises some of the key issues affecting the educational opportunities of children from birth to seven. These include: services for children under five, four‐year‐olds in primary school classes, equal opportunities, training and status of early years professionals. The paper emphasises the influence of concepts of early childhood and the need for UK policy makers to recognise babies and very young children as people, and to acknowledge their capabilities.     

Teachers in early childhood policy

This paper examines teacher accountability and authority in early childhood policy. It reports on data from a study that investigated the influences affecting early childhood teacher decision-making at the preschool level in Victoria, Australia. Using a question raised by Ball ‘Where are the teachers in all this [policy]?’ provided a starting point for the critical discourse analysis into how forms of control, teacher authority, obligation and constraint within policies potentially influenced teachers’ curriculum decisions. The study found that despite no government-mandated curriculum framework at the time, teachers were held accountable for their curricular practice. Yet as professionals, early childhood teachers were denied public acknowledgement of their expertise as they were almost invisible in policy. In the four policies analysed, proprietors of early childhood settings and preschool agencies held authority over curriculum. Subsequently, teachers’ authority as professionals with curricular knowledge was diminished.     

Dutch bargee families: partners in early childhood education

This chapter analyses current provision of early childhood education for the toddler children of Dutch itinerant bargees (that is, children who live with their parents on ships). That provision functions as a microcosm of continuing changes to educational systems and the broader socioeconomic milieu operating in the Netherlands. The argument is illustrated by the author's experience and knowledge gained as director of the National Foundation of Education for Children of Bargee Families, and by contemporary theories of early childhood education.     

Diversity in early childhood education: a German perspective

This paper outlines the theoretical foundation of a skill enhancement programme in early childhood settings which follows the ideas of the Anti-Bias approach. A focal point of the concept is to acknowledge the connection between societal, structural and individual biases. It challenges those biases and assists educators in improving their competences to promote diversity. The paper describes the history of the transfer of the Anti-Bias approach across?three different international contexts. An empirical study is then introduced which is based on the combination of a document analysis and expert interviews of those who facilitate the concept. The findings reveal that developing competences in reflecting the individual self and professional actions are key methods, and they entail implications for concepts of enabling educators to support inclusion. Those implications as well as input on dealing with diversity in Germany are outlined.     

Child-initiated activity: Its importance in early childhood education

The teacher is discussing the activities of the day with a group of fifteen four-year-olds. She explains that first the total group will go to the art area and then to the science demonstration. Then the children will have a snack and go outside. When she is finished talking, all of the children get up and move to the art tables.Janis R. Bullock is Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT.     

Multicultural visions in early reading classrooms: Implications for early childhood teacher educators

Abstract

Teachers and teacher educators are faced with an urgent responsibility to support the learning of an increasingly diverse population of young children. Based on the sociocultural perspective of reading, a literature‐based approach is outlined for early reading teachers. The implications of this approach to teacher education programs are further discussed from the author's own experiences of transmitting multicultural visions to preservice teachers in a multicultural course and a literacy method course she taught. The author maintains that teacher educators are in a unique position to help early childhood teacher candidates nurture multicultural visions in their teacher education programs today, and carry these visions to their future early reading classrooms tomorrow. © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.     

What troubles early childhood educators in New Zealand: a 20-year cross-sectional study of ethical difficulties in early childhood practice

For more than 20 years, the New Zealand early childhood (EC) sector has had guidance about how to deal with situations of ethical difficulty in daily practice through the ECE Code of Ethics. This paper reports on three surveys undertaken at 10-year intervals that sought to understand EC educators’ experiences of such situations, and how they addressed them within their EC settings. An analysis of educators’ stories of ethically troubling situations from the three data-sets traced shifts and similarities in the content reported, and in how educators responded to these challenges over the two-decade period. We situate this analysis alongside changes in the New Zealand ECE policy context during the same time frame. We argue that a connection exists between the reported situations and teachers’ responses to them, and changes within the policy and professional context of daily EC practice.     

Dolls in the early childhood classroom

Dolls are a part of every culture. From the beginning of time, children have played with dolls, using them as friends and confidants, as surrogates while the child recreates domestic situations, and as props for acting out fantasies. Dolls help children practice the nurturing role they see their parents performing. Dolls can be loved or punished, kissed or spanked, rocked to sleep or sent to bed with no supper, providing an acceptable outlet for a child's range of emotions. Children have the same kind of control over their dolls' lives that parents have over the lives of their children. Eden Ross Lipson, children's book editor ofThe New York Times, notes the universality of children's play with dolls. She suggests, The will to create dolls, to give them personalities and family relationships, to imagine their emotions and act out fantasies in which they figure, is one of the characteristics that makes us all more alike than different as human beings (Lipson, 1986).Blakely Fetridge Bundy is a writer, consultant, and teacher at Willow Wood Pre-School in Winnetka, IL.     

Enhancing thinking skills in early childhood

A case study approach was adopted to investigate two thinking skills programmes for a maximum variation sample of five- to six-year-olds in four schools, in two local authorities (LAs), in England and Wales, using multiple methods. School staff interviewed felt that thinking skills programmes enhanced critical thinking skills and improved use of language, attentive listening, social cooperation, confidence and independence. Welsh staff indicated that the programmes had a whole-school impact, reflecting national policy, intensive training, coaching and monitoring and leading to transfer to other lessons, such as mathematics. Without a national curriculum mandate, the English thinking-skills practice was vulnerable to disruption and lack of continuity. Observation showed that teachers' delivery varied in open questioning and challenge, group work and pupil talk. Pupils' verbal reasoning and numerical attainments showed modest evidence of change and development. Conditions supporting change and sustainability included: national policy with thinking skills at its core; high-quality professional development and a whole-school approach; coaching with systematic observation and feedback. This promoted changes in leadership, trust and collaboration, structures of interaction between policy and LA, head teacher, teachers and children.