Understanding infants: characteristics of early childhood practitioners' interpretations of infants and their behaviours

This research explored the nature of early childhood practitioners' interpretations of infants in their programs on the basis that such interpretations guide practitioner–infant interactions and curriculum decision‐making processes. Twenty‐four infant practitioners were asked to describe a nominated infant in their program and to interpret video extracts of that infant's behaviour in the contexts of toy play and a nappy‐change routine. Constant comparison techniques were employed to develop a model representing the theoretical properties of the ideas and explanations contained within their interpretive statements, and to identify main areas of individual or contextual variation. The findings extend current understandings of the psychological context of early childhood infant programs and provide a foundation for future investigations of the implications of infant practitioner interpretations for their professional teaching and caregiving practices.     

Quality in early years settings: Government,research and practitioners’ perspectives

This article begins by outlining the UK Government policy context, offering a brief critique before moving on to summarise recent research into ‘quality’ in the early years. The main body of the article locates the perspectives of early years practitioners within this context, drawing on data from an Economic and Social Research Council‐funded study of 18 early years settings, including interviews and focused group discussions with 165 practitioners. The findings reveal that practitioners’ understandings of ‘quality’ are influenced by government discourses but appear to be linked to the context of their setting together their personal and professional histories. In discussing the nature of ‘quality’, the authors focus on tensions inherent in the government discourses and draw out the implications for children's experiences and the training and development of early years practitioners.     

5×5×5 = Creativity in the Early Years

5×5×5 ? Creativity in the Early Years has involved five early years' settings, five artists and five cultural centres working in partnership to support young children (3–6 years) in their exploration, communication and expression of creative ideas. This year‐long research project has been inspired by the approach to education and the creative arts in early years' settings in Reggio Emilia, Northern Italy. The three aims have been evaluated; they were: to demonstrate ways in which creativity and innovation can be fostered in and with young children; to influence early years' educational practice by establishing creativity as an essential foundation of early learning; and to share findings as widely as possible, creating a legacy for the future. This article examines the collaborative processes between artists, educators and cultural centres as they worked with young children using a creative and reflective cycle. The underpinning principles and the role of professional development have been essential to the success of the project. Findings show that careful observations and documentation of children's words will provide insight into their ideas and understandings. As adults it is our role to facilitate and support children's depth of learning. By respecting children and taking time to make observations and connections with the children's thinking, we can refine our own efforts in supporting their learning more effectively.     

Implementing State Standards for Science Education: What District Policy Makers Make of the Hoopla

Premised on the assumption that school districts play an important role in the implementation of state and federal policy, this article explores the districts' response to state science standards. Adopting a cognitive perspective on the implementation process, the authors examine the ideas about science education that district policy makers construct from science standards. Our analysis illuminates how the ideas about reforming science education that district policy makers come to understand from new science standards contribute to these standards being adapted at the district level in ways that miss or misrepresent their core intent. The article identifies prominent patterns in district policy makers' understandings of the science reforms. Based on this analysis, the authors argue that a cause of implementation failure, rarely examined in the literature, concerns the ways in which local implementers miss or misconstrue the intent of policy proposals. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach: 37: 401–425, 2000     

Practitioners’ learning and school reform: lessons from ‘extension with parallel block scheduling‘ 1

This paper documents local practitioners'divergent understandings of the purpose of one language arts innovation‐Extension with Parallel Block Scheduling. This study posits that the strikingly different lessons they learned from the innovation grew out of a potent legacy of past policy and the active and underspecified climate of current instructional policy. Further, both the structural features of the innovation itself and the lack of shared discourse across the district impeded practitioners’ ability to construct shared meanings. The author speculates how the innovation might have provided opportunities for practitioners to learn from their divergent understandings in order to deepen and enact reformed language arts

     

The challenges of evaluation: assessing Early Talk's impact on speech language and communication practice in children's centres

This paper describes the findings of a qualitative evaluation of an early years' intervention, I Can's Early Talk (ET) programme. ET was designed to improve speech, language and communication outcomes for children aged 0–5 by focusing on enhancing practitioners' knowledge and skills. The research focused on children aged 3–4 years and was conducted in 14 Sure Start Children's Centres across England, using a combination of observations and interviews with practitioners, centre managers and local authority staff, along with a questionnaire survey of parents. Findings revealed improvements in practitioners' confidence and practice as a result of participating in the programme. The results also suggest that participating practitioners felt their capacity to understand and reflect on how to support children's speech, language and communication improved, particularly in the children's centres which had been accredited for over six months. ET was also found to offer a balance of support and challenge which consolidated and extended good practice and identified areas for development where practice was less effective. In addition, some of the challenges, which characterised and ultimately enhanced the research process, are described.     

Little Boys: tomorrow's macho lads

This paper presents elements of an ethnographic case study of a group of five male friends between the ages of six and eight years. The study sought to examine the ways in which the group's social dynamics interacted to define, regulate and maintain collective understandings of masculinity. Dominant peer culture was found to be particularly potent in championing a hegemonic masculinity embodying and cultivating physical domination, aggression and violence underpinned by constructions of females and femininity as the negative ‘other’. These restrictive understandings were interpreted as normalised through the philosophies and practices of the boys' teachers and their principal. Here the naturalist assumptions underpinning dominant early childhood pedagogy constituted the boys as ‘gender innocent’ and were implicated in understandings of developmentally appropriate practice. Through illuminating clear parallels to associated research, this paper presents further warrant for abandoning these naturalist assumptions which continue to mitigate against gender equity in early childhood (MacNaughton, Rethinking Gender in Early Childhood Education, St Leonards, Allen & Unwin, 2000). In this regard, the paper signifies the importance of maintaining a focus on addressing issues of collective masculinity in early childhood.     

Let's Talk About Maths: The Role of Observed “Maths‐Talk” and Maths Provisions in Preschoolers' Numeracy

Developmental cognitive neuroscience highlights the importance of interactions between children and their environment. As young children spend increasing time in childcare, it is key to investigate the impact of “maths‐talk” and maths provisions in preschools. Qualitative insights from early educators indicate a greater bias toward counting activities than would be expected given the Early Years curriculum. In addition, we quantified the observed breadth of preschool practitioners' maths language (e.g., place‐value language), setting‐based maths provisions (e.g., quality of maths‐related activities), and their relation with children's early numeracy skills. In settings with greater practitioners' breadth of maths language, children display greater cardinality skills although our data call for the further investigation of parental socioeconomic status and education. We conclude with a discussion on the need to operationalize children's maths learning environments as diversely as possible. Enriching practitioners' skill sets may be an effective and needed way of improving early maths outcomes.     

Timescales and ethnography: understanding a child's meaning-making across three sites,a home,a classroom and a family literacy class

This article describes a multi-sited ethnographic study of a Turkish child, Fatih, and his mother, Elif, over a period of three years. The study was a longitudinal ethnographic project that focused on children's multimodal texts in the home. Additional research was also carried out in the classroom. This article describes the researcher's developing understanding of the meanings of Fatih's texts, and considers how the use of time scales in ethnographic work can aid understandings of texts.     

Rethinking the role of research: New issues and lingering doubts in an era of expanding preschool education

Changing ideas about the role of early education increasingly point toward universal preschool education for all children. This discussion examines issues concerning the long-term effects of preschool experiences and suggests that the value of early education will vary as a function of a matrix of factors including program quality, the vulnerability of individual children, and family needs. The achievements and limitations of evaluation research are described within the context of possible deleterious effects of preschool education. Emphasis is given to the importance of developing ideographic methods of study to achieve more valid assessments of children's response to early education.     

Professional development to support principals' vision of science instruction: Building from their prior experiences to support the science practices

The implementation of science reform must be viewed as a systems-level problem and not just focus on resources for teachers and students. High-capacity instructional leadership is essential for supporting classroom science instruction. Recent reform efforts include a shift from learning about science facts to figuring out scientific phenomena in which students use science practices as they build and apply disciplinary core ideas. We report findings from a research study on professional development (PD) to support instructional leaders' learning about the science practices. After participating in the PD, the instructional leaders' familiarity with and leadership content knowledge of the science practices significantly improved. Initially, principals used their understandings from other disciplines and content neutral visions of classrooms to make sense of science instruction. For example, they initially used their understandings of models and argument from ELA and math to make sense of science classroom instruction. Furthermore, some principals focused on content neutral strategies, like a clear objective. Over the course of the PD workshops, principals took up the language of the science practices in more nuanced and sophisticated ways. Principals' use of the language of the science practices became more frequent and shifted from identifying or defining them to considering quality and implementation in science classrooms. As we design tools to support science, we need to consider instructional leaders as important stakeholders and develop resources to specifically meet their needs. If the science feels too unfamiliar or intimidating, principals may avoid or reframe science reform efforts. Consequently, it is important to leverage instructional leaders' resources from other disciplines and content neutral strategies as bridges for building understanding in science. We argue that the science practices are one potential lever to engage in this work and shift instructional leaders' understandings of science instruction.     

‘We believe in every child as an individual’: Nursery school head teachers’ understandings of ‘quality’ in early years education

This article addresses the issue of ‘quality’ in early years education, with the aim of highlighting the voices of nursery school head teachers. Government early years achievement statistics display a reductive and de-contextualised focus on young children’s developmental outcomes, with measures of the percentage of 5-year-olds achieving a ‘good level of development’ at the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage. Early years practitioner understandings of ‘quality’ are more sophisticated and multi-dimensional, and yet are marginalised in debates around what constitutes ‘quality’ early years provision and around what are desired outcomes for young children and how these can be achieved. Using qualitative data from interviews with nursery school head teachers and classroom teachers from across England, the article analyses these participants’ understandings of ‘quality’ early years provision. The study finds a consensus amongst these teachers that quality provision emanates from the professional skills of staff providing education for the whole child and their wellbeing: they conceive of ‘quality’ as relating to a depth of understanding of each child as an individual, enabling the child to progress in their learning.     

Variations on the use of cases in social work and teacher education

The recent proliferation of testing policies in the US has raised concerns about the consequences of ‘teaching to the test’. Current studies of teaching and testing document patterns of teacher resistance and accommodations to external tests, but often fail to examine how these patterns influence teachers' and students' engagement with curricular texts. This study develops an inter‐textual perspective to specify the discursive processes through which one external test entered into classroom tasks and talk about a novel in four urban high schools. The study illustrates how efforts to raise standards through testing policies can result in limiting students' opportunities to construct understandings of curricular texts and of the social ideas at their core.     

Achievement of Black Caribbean pupils: good practice in Lambeth schools

The aim of this research article is to investigate how pupils from Black Caribbean backgrounds are helped to achieve high standards in British schools and to identify a number of significant common themes for success in raising the achievement. It draws evidence of good practice from 13 case study schools in the local education authority (LEA). The main findings of the research carried out show that Key Stage 2 (KS2) and General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) results have improved significantly in the case study schools in the last seven years and all schools are performing above national average with Black Caribbean pupils. The study has also identified a number of good practices in successful schools. Among the key features that contribute to the success in the case study schools for raising the achievement of Black Caribbean are: strong leadership with emphasis on raising expectations for all pupils and teachers; the use of performance data for school self‐evaluation and tracking pupils' performance; a commitment to creating a mesmerising curriculum where teachers use their creative intuition to deepen the quality of pupils' learning; a highly inclusive curriculum that meets the needs of Black Caribbean pupils; a strong link with the community and a clear commitment to parents' involvement; good and well coordinated support to Black Caribbean pupils through extensive use of learning mentors and role models; an inclusive curriculum and a strong commitment to equal opportunities with a clear stand on racism. This article discusses in detail these good practices and pattern of KS2 and GCSE performance by ethnicity to illustrate difference in attainment. Overall, the finding of this case study LEA confirms that in good schools Black Caribbean pupils do well and buck the national trend against all odds. The reasons for this success story are all to do with education provided in the LEA and schools. The implications of the research for all concerned with school improvement receive much attention.     

Notes from a practitioner: A response to Julie Laible's loving epistemology

This article explains how Julie Laible's "loving epistemology" has implications for practitioners' research-based activities. Laible's view of the Other provides guidance for the research of those striving to be both feminist in approach and respectful toward research subjects.     

Children's learning and developmental potential: examining the theoretical informants of early childhood curricula from the educator's perspective

The early childhood curriculum is informed by a complicated array of developmental and learning theories. In recent times these theories have been most readily articulated in approaches to curriculum planning emerging from the Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) guidelines and the project work in Reggio Emilia. Drawing on a common theoretical heritage, each of these approaches places a certain emphasis on ideas emerging from cognitive constructivism and developmental theory. This paper explores the nature of these theoretical informants as they are played out in both DAP and Reggio Emilia. Findings from a study aimed at examining educators' conceptions of cognitive constructivism and developmental theory as utilised by DAP are reported, with the responses by four educators regarding these understandings in relation to their developing awareness of the Reggio Emilia approach detailed. The paper identifies differences in orientation between the educators' conceptions of developmental theory and constructivism relative to DAP and Reggio, and indicates the potential value further research in this area holds for examining how common theoretical informants can be played out to different effect across early childhood curricula.     

Beginning teachers' conceptual understandings of effective history teaching: examining the change from “subject knowers” to “subject teachers”

This article reports the investigation of change in preservice teachers' conceptions of effective history teaching across a secondary history methods course in a postgraduate diploma of education program. Using concept mapping to plot shifts in their expressed reflections, data were obtained that indicate personal constructs of effective history teaching based around participants' map structures, curriculum understandings, knowledge of subject matter, knowledge of learners, knowledge of pedagogies, and pedagogical content knowledge. The purpose of this article is twofold: to present the findings of research exploring the growth in conceptual understandings of early career history teachers promoted through the use of concept maps, and to discuss the participants' response to tangible opportunities to reflect on their own conceptual understandings of history teaching.     

Early Years Educators in Finland and England: Issues of professionality Educateurs Pre´scolaires en Finlande et en Angleterre: Questions de professionnalite´ Los Educadores de Menores en Finlandia e Inglaterra: Temas de profesionalidad

This paper endeavours to make a contribution to the debate concerning early years practitioners' identity as a professional group and does so through the use of data from semi-structured interviews conducted in England and Finland with early years teachers. During these interviews, early years teachers working in Finland expressed different understandings of their professional role than early years teachers working in England. It is suggested that the educators working in Finland had adopted understandings of professionality that were based more closely on notions of complexity and democracy. In contrast, responses made by early years educators working in England indicated a more limited conception of professionality. In the paper the evidence is analysed and suggestions made about why these distinctions have occurred and suggests that extensions to professionality for early years teachers in both countries to include 'criticality' need to occur. Cet article tente d'apporter une contribution au débat concernant l'identité des éducateurs préscolaires en tant que groupe professionnel, par le biais de données recueillies lors d'entretiens semi-structurés avec des enseignants préscolaires en Finlande et en Angleterre. Pendant ces entretiens, les éducateurs préscolaires travaillant en Finlande ont exprimé une compréhension différente de leur rôle professionnel de ceux qui travaillent en Angleterre. Il est suggéré que les éducateurs travaillant en Finlande ont développé une compréhension de la professionnalité basée davantage sur des notions de complexité et de démocratie. Au contraire, les réponses des éducateurs préscolaires travaillant en Angleterre ont dénoté une conception plus limitée de la professionnalité. L'article analyse les résultats et présente des suggestions sur les raisons de ces différences, et suggère qu'il devrait se produire des extensions à la professionnalité des enseignants préscolaires dans les deux pays pour lui faire comprendre la 'criticalité'. Este artículo espera hacer una aportación al debate relacionado con la identidad de los profesionales de edades jóvenes como un grupo profesional y lo hace con el uso de datos obtenidos en entrevistas semiestructuradas realizadas en Inglaterra y en Finlandia con profesores de menores. Durante estas entrevistas, los profesores de menores que trabajan en Finlandia expresaron diferentes interpretaciones de su papel profesional que aquellas expresadas por profesores de menores que trabajan en Inglaterra. Se sugiere que los educadores que trabajan en Finlandia han adoptado interpretaciones de profesionalidad basadas más estrechamente en nociones de complejidad y democracia. Por el contrario, las respuestas aportadas por educadores de menores que trabajan en Inglaterra indican un concepto de profesionalidad más limitado. En el artículo se analiza la evidencia y se presentan sugerencias sobre el por qué han ocurrido estas distinciones y sugiere que deben producirse extensiones a esa profesionalidad para profesores de menores de ambos países a fin de que incluyan 'criticalidad'.     

Interrogating conceptions of leadership: school principals,policy and paradox

Currently educational research literature demonstrates wide discussion and endorsement of ‘distributed’ leadership while concurrently traditional, hegemonic forms prevail in practice. This article investigates understandings about educational leadership held by Australian school principals. The article describes the contradictory conceptions about educational leadership currently in circulation. It interrogates underlying assumptions and questions how both hegemonic and newer leadership conceptions and assumptions serve educational leaders. Data from principals around the country and across education systems reinforced the predominance of un-theorised or under-theorised notions about leadership, with similar assumptions found in important policy artefacts and practices. This article emerges from interviews with 100 principals focusing on their professional learning needs, which revealed interesting ideas, issues and dilemmas concerning ‘leadership’. It fills a gap in research on distributed leadership by exploring contradictions inherent in policy, practice and understandings in this area. The article is structured into four sections. First, extant literature on this topic and the research are explained. Second, the article focuses on principals' conceptions about leadership and those inherent within important policy and practical artefacts. A discussion of the findings focuses on the discrepancy between theory and policy endorsement and the views of practitioners. Finally, the article canvasses the implications of the research.     

Nature as children's space: A systematic review

The emerging interest in “spaces of childhood” over the past two decades can be identified across numerous disciplines. A substantial body of research has indicated that children's active engagement within the natural environment is associated with a range of cognitive, physical, affective, and moral developmental benefits. Although research on children's space and place is a burgeoning field, currently only one identified systematic review exists within the literature investigating the benefits of children's engagement in nature. The aim of this article was thus to systematically review and synthesize the findings of children's understandings and engagement with nature as a space. After a systematic search of the literature, 83 articles were included in this review with study samples spanning across children aged 3 to 18 years old. The review underscores four thematic domains derived utilizing thematic analysis. It is ostensible from the results that children's perceptions of and engagement in nature as a space and place are multifarious, benefiting children's well-being in myriad ways. At a foundational level, more research is required to deepen understandings about how children in differing contexts construct nature.