Young children's enactments of human rights in early childhood education

This paper explores ways in which human rights become part of and affect young children's everyday practices in early childhood education and, more particularly, how very young children enact human rights in the preschool setting. The study is conducted in a Swedish preschool through observations of the everyday practices of a group of children aged between 1 and 3 years. With a child view based on human rights theory and childhood sociology, an action-based methodology for seeking children's perspective is used to analyse the observation data. Three rights areas are identified in which children frequently deal with human rights in their actions and where they enact a range of possible rights holder positions: ownership, influence and equal value. These rights areas, and the children's various enactments of the rights, are reflected against the preschool context as a co-constructor to the actions of the participants.     

Hearing children's voices in the early years

In this article Hannah Mortimer explores how even very young children can be consulted and included when planning for their education and needs. This allows early years practitioners to ensure that the children they support have equal opportunities, feel involved and successful in their learning and play, and are given activities and interventions to suit their interests and strengths. Various approaches are described here for including young children with special educational needs (SEN) and other disabilities in their foundation stage education. These include observation and interpretation, talk‐through approaches, play‐based assessment and intervention, use of art‐work, role play and stories, welcome profiles and personal records, increasing all children's awareness of SEN and developing inclusive and enjoyable approaches for everybody.     

Pre-school regulation in Ireland: learning from the past to improve young children's everyday lives in early childhood care and education services

The development of a system of regulation in early childhood care and education (ECCE) in Ireland was a slow process. Some decades passed between initial calls for regulation and the actual implementation of standards in 1997, reflecting the delay and inaction that has characterised ECCE policy implementation in general in Ireland. The present system has been criticised by some as not being far-reaching enough and a review, originally promised in 2001, is still overdue at time of writing. The question arises as to whether a regulatory system can fulfil the dual functions of, first, ensuring that services are meeting acceptable minimal standards and, second, supporting services to improve quality of provision beyond minimum standards and which promote children's development and learning. This question is explored in the light of discussions with the various stakeholders, recent policy developments in ECCE in Ireland, and the international debate on the relationship between regulations and quality.     

Young children learning about well-being and environmental education in the early years: a funds of knowledge approach

Early childhood educators currently provide content focused learning opportunities for children in the areas of well-being and environmental education. However, these are usually seen as discrete content areas and educators are challenged with responding to children’s interests in popular-culture inspired food products given these influence their consumption of energy-dense, nutrient-poor and highly packaged food in the early childhood setting. This paper reports preliminary findings from a pilot randomised trial examining the interconnectedness of sustainability, well-being and popular-culture in early childhood education. Planning, assessment documentation and summaries from twenty-four learning experiences implemented by six educators over a six-week period were analysed using a deductive approach. Twenty well-being and environmental education topics were identified and shown to be generated by the educators when considering the children’s ‘funds of knowledge’ on popular-culture inspired food products. We argue that topics derived from children’s engagement with popular-culture may help educators to create an integrated approach to curriculum provision. This may impact child weight and facilitate obesity prevention and environmental sustainability as children create stronger connections between these content areas and their everyday choices and practices.     

Moving house for education in the pre‐school years

This paper uses data from the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) to examine house moves that take place in the pre‐school years, focusing on families who move for the education of their children. We present results showing that education‐ related house moves do indeed occur in the pre‐school years with particular types of parents making these education‐related moves to ensure their children attend a good primary school. We then examine whether this demand for high quality schooling is associated with a house price premia by linking the MCS data to Land Registry data and show that parents are prepared to pay significantly more to buy a house located near to better performing primary schools, even before their children reach school starting age. We interpret this as evidence of demand for school quality in the early years as parents (especially more educated and advantaged parents) ‘gear up’ their quest for what they perceive to be better schooling for their children before they start school.     

Teachers’ and children’s personal epistemologies for moral education: Case studies in early years elementary education

While there is strong interest in teaching values in Australia and internationally there is little focus on young children’s moral values learning in the classroom. Research shows that personal epistemology influences teaching and learning in a range of education contexts, including moral education. This study examines relationships between personal epistemologies (children’s and teachers’), pedagogies, and school contexts for moral learning in two early years classrooms. Interviews with teachers and children and analysis of school policy revealed patterns of relationships between personal epistemologies and pedagogies within each school. A whole-school approach to understanding personal epistemologies and practice for moral values learning is suggested.     

从生活经验到科学概念:化学教学起点的教学策略

"从学生已有生活经验出发"是化学新课程的基本理念,学生的起点能力是教学的出发点,并对教学产生直接的影响.把学生的"已知"作为教学起点设计的教学策略主要有:重视联系,促进同化;合理筛选,满足教学;有效迁移,促进学习;纠正错误,实现转变;挖掘已知,强化应用等.以生活经验作为教学起点,体现教学设计"以人为本"的人性追求和教学"生命化"的目标取向.     

Literacy in the early years: a follow‐up study

In one Australian state, a concerted effort has been made to impact the literacy achievement of students during the early years of schooling, especially those students attending primary schools in identified least‐advantaged areas. While these initiatives have been successful, their impact has been enhanced by the development of print‐enriched play environments during the pre‐school years. Data are reported here from the Preschool Literacy Project (PLP) that followed approximately 1000 students, in treatment and control groups, through into their first two years in school. The analysis of residual gain scores identifies the reciprocal relationship between spoken and written language, also the increasing Text Level achievement for students who entered school with enhanced conceptual development in relation to literacy.     

Young children's attitudes toward the disabled: A classroom intervention using children's literature

With the increasing inclusion of special needs children in regular classrooms, experiences which encourage positive attitudes toward the disabled are essential. The purpose of this project was: 1) to examine the thinking and attitudes of young children regarding the capabilities of disabled children and the potential for friendship and 2) to assess the effectiveness of children's literature and related activities in influencing attitudes toward the disabled. Results suggested that children's attitudes were generally positive and realistic regarding the capabilities and the potential for friendship with the disabled. The use of selected children's books and book related activities positively influenced children's attitudes.     

Young children's emotional practices while engaged in long‐term science investigation

In this article, the role of young children's emotional practices in science learning is described and analyzed. From the standpoint of performativity theory and social‐constructionist theory of emotion, it is argued that emotion is performative and the expression of emotion in the classroom has its basis in social relationships. Arising from these relationships is the emotional culture of the classroom that plays a key role in the development of classroom emotional rules as well as the legitimation of science knowledge. These relationships are reflected in two levels of classroom dialogue: talking about and doing science, and expressing emotions about science and its learning. The dynamics of the negotiations of classroom emotional rules and science knowledge legitimation may dispose students to act positively or negatively toward science learning. This analysis is illustrated in the experiences of a teacher and her students during a 3‐year ethnographic study of emotions in science teaching and learning. This research suggests the importance of the interrelationship between emotions and science learning and the notion that emotional practices can be powerful in nurturing effective and exciting science learning environments. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 693–719, 2004     

儿童安全隐患分析及安全教育方法探究

儿童作为祖国的希望,其安全问题备受社会各界关注,是影响社会稳定发展的重要因素。消除儿童安全隐患不仅要社会各界携手相助,更需要从儿童的安全教育做起。除提高儿童自我保护意识外,还需要教授其自我保护方法,构建包括学校、家庭和社会在内的儿童安全保障体系,将儿童安全隐患扼杀在摇篮里。     

Relations between socio‐cultural factors,the home literacy environment and children's literacy development in the first years of primary education

This paper deals with the relation between children's home literacy environments (HLE) and their literacy development in the first phase of primary school. On the basis of a broad conceptualisation of the HLE, we identified three home literacy profiles (rich, child‐directed and poor HLE). Firstly, we related these profiles to socio‐cultural factors (more specifically, ethnicity and socio‐economic status [SES]). We found an association between the HLE and ethnicity/SES, indicating that (Dutch) majority children and children from high SES families had, in general, the most stimulating HLEs. On the other hand, we observed considerable variability in HLEs within ethnic minority and low SES groups. Subsequently, we related the HLE profiles to literacy outcomes in kindergarten, first and second grade. We found that, after controlling for relevant background characteristics, the HLE had an effect on children's vocabulary scores in first grade, and their general reading comprehension both in first and second grade.     

A Protocol for computer mediated education across the internet

Changes in the workplace have had an impact on methods of training and education. There is a growing need for flexible methods of course delivery. The economics of courseware development highlight a need for more efficient use of courseware, pointing to geographically distributed Computer Mediated Education as a cost-effective way of sharing these development costs.
Object-orientation is a software development paradigm that is making sweeping changes to the information technology industry. An object- oriented extension to electronic mail is proposed as a protocol for facilitating distributed Computer Mediated Education applications. The use of electronic mail allows use of the Internet as a transport medium. A protocol has been devised for a loosely coupled, distributed, Computer Mediated Education system using electronic mail to transport course material (encapsulated as objects) from one workstation to another. Each workstation uses an object-oriented environment with the ability to dynamically incorporate new courseware objects at run time. A prototype system has been developed to illustrate the feasibility of the protocol.