Reported Research Funding in Four Early Childhood Journals

Funding for research in the area of early childhood is an ongoing challenge. The present research objective was to identify the frequency of acknowledgment of federal funding in articles published by four leading early childhood journals from 1999 to 2008. We conducted a content analysis of 1,338 publications found in Early Child Development and Care, Early Childhood Education Journal, Early Childhood Research and Practice, and Early Childhood Research Quarterly. Approximately 28% of the sample (368 articles in the target journals) reported funding in general. More specifically, 43% of the sample (160 articles of the 368 articles funded) reported federal funding. It is concluded that external funding, particularly federal funding for early childhood research may be the exception rather than the rule.     

My lovely C-section

Katherine and Andrew Taylor chose to have a planned home birth. With the support of her husband, Andrew, and her midwife and doula, Katherine labored at home for 48 hours before transferring to the hospital. Baby Luke was born by cesarean about 20 hours later. Confident and supported, the Taylors were able to make informed decisions and have a positive birth experience, although it was not what they had planned.     

Implementing a play‐based and developmentally appropriate curriculum in Northern Ireland primary schools: what lessons have we learned?

In the United Kingdom tensions have existed for many years between the pedagogical traditions of pre‐school, which tend to adopt developmentally oriented practices, and the more formal or subject‐oriented curriculum framework of primary school. These tensions have been particularly acute in the context of Northern Ireland, which has the earliest school starting age throughout Europe. In response to international research evidence and practice, a play‐based and developmentally appropriate curriculum, known as the Enriched Curriculum (EC), was introduced as a pilot in Year 1 and 2 classes in over 100 primary schools in Northern Ireland between 2000 and 2002 and continued until the Foundation Stage became statutory for all primary schools in 2007. This paper outlines four key lessons that have been learned from the first four years of the evaluation of this experience. These include the value and the meaning of a play‐based curriculum; the importance of teachers’ confidence and knowledge; teaching reading in a play‐based curriculum; and easing transitions in a play‐based curriculum.     

Boys' underachievement and the management of teacher accountability

This paper investigates the ways in which discourses of teacher accountability were negotiated by teachers within hearings held for the Australian Inquiry into Boys' Education. In the Inquiry context, dominant interpretative repertoires positioned teachers as obliged to ‘acknowledge’, ‘address’ and ‘actively respond’ to an essentialised version of male students' ‘learning needs’. These repertoires functioned to equate the provision of ‘boy-friendly’ interventions with ‘professional’ classroom practice – suggesting significant discursive constraints on teachers' capacity to make sense of boys' underperformance outside of this dominant framework. Attention is paid to the ways in which these repertoires supported teachers to manage a positive identity in a context where they were positioned as largely responsible for male students' underperformance. At the same time, such constructions are interrogated with regard to their broader function in naturalising the surveillance of teachers, and reproducing boys' underachievement as something for which (particularly female) teachers have to account.     

“American = English Speaker” Before “American = White”: The Development of Children's Reasoning About Nationality

Adults implicitly judge people from certain social backgrounds as more “American” than others. This study tests the development of children's reasoning about nationality and social categories. Children across cultures (White and Korean American children in the United States, Korean children in South Korea) judged the nationality of individuals varying in race and language. Across cultures, 5‐ to 6‐year‐old children (N = 100) categorized English speakers as “American” and Korean speakers as “Korean” regardless of race, suggesting that young children prioritize language over race when thinking about nationality. Nine‐ and 10‐year‐olds (N = 181) attended to language and race and their nationality judgments varied across cultures. These results suggest that associations between nationality and social category membership emerge early in life and are shaped by cultural context.     

Opening Doors: Teaching LGBTQ-themed Young Adult Literature for an Inclusive Curriculum

LGBTQ themes are often neglected in many schools' curriculum. Currently, an LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum framework is not required in most school districts across the county. Therefore, it is important to understand how teachers regard LGBTQ issues; how they address the needs of students in the middle school and high school English classroom who identify on this spectrum or who come from LGBTQ families; and how they incorporate literature that may be considered “controversial” in their future school districts. In this study, English/Language Arts preservice teachers (PSTs) (certification 7–12) were invited to participate in a book club and self-select young adult (YA) literature centering on characters who identify on the LGBTQ spectrum. During two book club meetings, three themes emerged that embody how literature can become a mirror as well as a window for students and assist youth in identity formation and confirmation. Moreover, literature has the potential to empower readers to take action on controversial issues, especially when readers are in positions to make change (no matter how subtle). Although the data collected were from PSTs, our aim with this article is to expand these three themes as overarching messages for practicing educators today, urging the importance of a more inclusive curricula involving LGBTQ literature.     

Next generation crosscutting themes: Factors that contribute to students' understandings of size and scale

This study examined the degree to which individual differences in students' (N = 232) concepts of size and scale are explained by factors such as students' innate sense of number, out‐of‐school science experiences, exposure to size and scale instruction, gender identities, and racial/ethnic identities. There is increasing emphasis being placed on the use of crosscutting concepts to promote deep learning in science. A multiple linear regression indicated students' racial/ethnic identities, experiences with scale outside of school, and exposure to size and scale instruction significantly added to the prediction model. Results from this study can both inform the movement toward incorporating crosscutting concepts into pedagogy as well as inform educators, administrators, and other stakeholders of the factors that may shape students' understanding of the cross‐cutting concept of scale, proportion, and quantity.     

‘Necessary Cessation from Toil and Work’: Young Christian Workers and the Question of Sport on Sundays in Post-War Melbourne

Abstract

The Young Christian Workers (YCW) is an international movement for young Catholics, engaged through a method of education called ‘See, Judge, and Act’. From the 1950s to the 1980s, the Australian YCW became known for running campaigns on a range of social issues and the provision of services – including sporting events and competitions. In this paper, the development of the Australian YCW Football Association during the 1950s is explored, and the history of YCW members’ participation in public debates about the morality of Sunday sport, which culminated in a local referendum in the Melbourne suburb of Camberwell in 1959, is traced. Drawing on archival materials and interviews conducted with former young workers, the paper explores tensions within Christianity around the meaning of ‘leisure’, ‘idleness’, and Sunday as a day of observance and rest. This examination of the Melbourne debate of 1959 will show how religious tensions around Sunday sport were shaped by class, youth, and masculine identities.     

Navigating nature,culture and education in contemporary botanic gardens

Increasingly, humans are an urban species prone to ‘plant blindness’. This demographic shift and situation has implications for both individual and collective perceptions of nature, as well as for addressing ‘ecophobia’ and encouraging ‘biophilia’ through education. Contemporary humanity occupies a world in which extensive physical change, both in the landscape and its related organisms, is occurring . Education-related debates on these issues links to the noted phenomenon of a ‘bubble wrap generation’ growing up within ‘nature-deficit’ childhoods in ‘megalopolitan cities’. Indeed, some commentators consider that 'nature has already disappeared' and exists only in protected spaces. Such perceptions have consequences for education in ‘presented world’ settings such as zoos, botanic gardens and natural history museums. This editorial, and its associated collection of papers, considers the critical relationships between nature, culture and education in contemporary botanic gardens and the ways in which visitors navigate their journeys, as demonstrated by research.