Making agency matter: rethinking infant and toddler agency in educational discourse

This article engages critically with the concept of agency in infant and toddler educational discourse. It is argued that agency, when conceptualised with emphasis on individuality and the autonomous self, poses a conceptual ‘dead end’ for those who are not-yet-in-language, such as babies and toddlers. In considering agency as an aspect of becoming that is inherent in all matter, the article seeks to explore new pathways for conceptualising agency in infant and toddler education. Methodologically, the article aims to generate complex questions and, following Nigel Thrift's call, ‘wild ideas’, rather than solutions by addressing the relationship between discourse and matter to open up new spaces for thinking and doing ‘agency’ in education, for babies and toddlers and beyond.     

Day care room transitions for toddlers: Recommendations for a supportive physical environment

The physical setting can be used to facilitate room transitions for toddlers in day care centers. A case study approach is taken to provide specific examples of supportive physical features for toddler transitions. Recommendations that support the transition process are provided.     

The Home Play of Toddlers with Disabilities: Contexts and maternal perspectives

A multiple case‐study design was used to explore the spontaneous play of three toddlers with disabilities as it emerged in the course of everyday activity in the home. Children were observed at home playing independently and with their mothers. Data consist of videotaped naturalistic observations in the children’s homes and mothers’ perspectives of their child’s play obtained in semi‐structured interviews. There was a great deal of similarity in the playful behaviour of toddlers and their mothers. Toddlers were active players throughout all daily routines and their play reflected their developmental level. Mothers actively supported their children’s initiative and engagement in play and they spoke of play as a highly valued behaviour. Some qualitative differences were noted in child and mother–child play, which seemed to relate to the nature of the child’s disability and developmental level. Further study of the play of young children with disabilities in naturalistic settings and ways that mothers and other caregivers value and support child play is recommended.     

Broadening the horizon: toddlers’ strategies for learning mathematics

The aim of this study is to analyse and discuss those strategies for learning that are essential for toddlers’ development of an understanding of basic aspects of mathematics. Analysis focuses on authentic episodes where toddlers aged one to three are interacting with other people. The settings chosen for the qualitative analysis emanate from a variation theory of learning approach. In such an approach, learning is defined as a change in understanding, and in order to change a person’s understanding of a certain phenomenon, various aspects must be focused on simultaneously. Accordingly, critical aspects that a learner has not been previously able to focus on may emerge during interaction with others since such settings provide an opportunity for the problemisation of differing aspects and perspectives. This study seeks to discern toddlers’ strategies for learning through the observation of those strategies that the toddlers themselves initiate, which may reveal the competence for learning that young children possess.     

家庭托育点规范化发展的国际经验及启示--基于政策工具的视角

在日本、法国、英国、丹麦、澳大利亚、加拿大等国,家庭托育是其托育服务体系的重要组成部分,所以这些国家都形成了相对完善的家庭托育政策管理体系。从国际经验来看,虽然家庭托育的服务类型多样,但是纳入监管的主要是由有资质(注册)的照护人员在自己家(或租赁的住宅)中提供保教结合的服务内容的家庭托育点,政府责任以保障兜底服务为主,广泛使用了权威工具、激励工具和能力建设工具,包括明确行政主管部门与家庭托育点的准入标准和审批流程,给予财政和非财政支持,加强师资培训和质量监管,等等。当前虽然我国很多城市普遍兴起家庭托育点,但是尚未出台关于家庭托育点的管理规范与措施。借鉴国际相关公共管理经验,我国应构建符合利益相关者的家庭托育政策目标,合理运用政策权威工具,建立全方位安全监管体系,组合配置激励工具与能力建设工具,支持家庭托育点规范有序发展,以满足婴幼儿家庭对具备收托幼儿数量少、师幼配比高、收托时间灵活、送托距离近等诸多便利条件的家庭托育点的需求。     

Schematic pedagogy: supporting one child's learning at home and in a group

In this paper, we identify ways in which the learning of very young children can be supported by practitioners developing a schematic pedagogy which focuses on structures of children's thinking. First, we provide a critical overview of relevant literature on schemas and schematic approaches to pedagogy. We then outline an original study undertaken to identify and support the learning of seven young children. Taking one child, whom we call Annie, we illustrate how her attention to the fine detail of elements of her home and group environments as she played offered strong clues to her pedagogues about her persistent interests (schemas). We show how careful observation by practitioners can be used to understand and support future learning encounters through a schematic pedagogy, and we consider implications of such an approach for practice in toddlers’ early learning.     

Australian Play School: viewing and post-viewing behaviours in young children

Australian Play School is a children’s television programme developed in collaboration with early childhood educators. It is screened free to air across Australia. Two hundred and twenty-four adult carers of young children aged 1–8?years completed an online survey via a link on the Play School website. The survey addressed child behaviours during and after viewing, and adult perceptions about which programme segments were most engaging to the child. Play School elicited a large number and variety of behavioural responses from children during and after viewing. The types of responses elicited suggest that viewing the programme may be beneficial for children’s development and learning. Results were tempered by the age of the child and this, as well as the impact of carer attitudes and carer input during and after viewing, needs to be explored further before results are translated into recommendations for programming and optimal viewing strategies.     

Merleau-Ponty’s ‘wild Being’: Tangling with the entanglements of research with the very young

Abstract

This article draws on a study of infant participation in research, and work in philosophical-empirical inquiry, to illuminate some of the inexhaustible entanglements constituting the collective relational landscape of educational research of particular encounters, which have been called moments of wonder. Working with Merleau-Ponty’s philosophical notions of wild Being and flesh, I look closely at one such ‘moment’, as lived as an entanglement of embodied self, worldly things, and other selves that collectively comes into being whilst opening onto time and space. I see this account as demonstrating the value of learning to see the ‘collective’, wherein individualities are engendered, for developing new understandings of early childhood education (ECE) relational landscapes, specifically in relation to ‘participatory’ research with very young children – and educational research more generally.