Education and Care for Children Three – Six Years in Australia and China – Pedagogical Perspectives

Historical accounts of the development of early childhood education (ECE) in Australia up to the passing of Child Care Act in 1972 (Brennan, 1998; Wong, 2006) show that parents' role in the development of the sector has been limited. This trend has continued since the 1970s, with parents seemingly contributing to the development and quality of individual centres more so than to the development of a quality system of ECE in Australia. In the absence of parent-driven demand for such a system, significant and longstanding barriers to the universal provision of high-quality ECE prevail. This paper suggests that three intersecting influences have collectively induced parents to think about ECE as a personal rather than a public concern. These influences are ECE policy as an ‘art of government’ (Foucault 1991[1978], p. 92); maternalist discourses that naturalise motherhood; and educators' limited engagement with and enacting of systems advocacy. The paper discusses possibilities for educators to subvert these influences and develop activist collaborations with the goal of achieving universal provision of high-quality education for all children in Australia.

In this chapter, we examine how educators and parents perceive, define and enact parental involvement within the context of early childhood education in Australia, and explore ways that these perceptions and definitions might come together to guide future research and practice. A total of seven educators and six parents from an EC setting in Melbourne, Australia, voluntarily responded to an open-ended survey to questions on how they perceived and explained parental involvement. Using a verbatim sorting software, the results initially highlight how the sample of Australian educators and parents explains parental involvement in ECEC, followed by how Australian educators and parents explain their role and the role of others in the context of parental involvement. These results are discussed through the conceptual lens of the cultural interface to situate the findings of this study in light of how parental involvement can shape the early childhood education and practice in Australia. We conclude the chapter by presenting a framework of parental involvement in the Australian context.

At any given time in the field of early childhood, there are discourses at play, producing images of children, and these ways of seeing children might be competing, colliding and/or complementing each other. It is fairly widely accepted that in many countries there are versions of dominant discourses that shape and are shaped by current practices in the field of early childhood. These include (1) romantic notions of children running free and connecting with nature and (2) the ‘Bart Simpson’ version of the naughty, cute or savage child, untamed and in need of civilising. These are far from being the only two discursive constructions of children present in current policies and practices. If early childhood professionals are to be active in shaping and implementing policies that affect their work and workforce, it is important that they are aware of the forces at play. In this article, we point to another powerful discourse at play in the Australian context of early childhood education, the image of children as economic units: investments in the future. We show how a ‘moment of arising’ in contemporary policy contexts, dominated by neoliberal principles of reform and competition, has charged early childhood educators in Australia with the duties of a ‘broker’, ensuring that young children are worth the investment. In this article, we begin with (1) a key policy document in early childhood education in Australia and examine the discursive affordances which shape the document. Next, (2) we pinpoint the shifts in how the work of child care is perceived by interrogating this key policy document through a methodology of discursive analysis. We then turn attention (3) to the work of this policy document along with other discourses which directly affect images of children and the shaping role these have on the work of educators. We conclude with (4) a consideration of how the work of early childhood professionals has come to be shaped by this economic discourse, and how they are being required to both work within the policy imperatives and likely to resist this new demand of them.

Drawing on Vygotsky's (1997a) concept of fossilized behavior, this study examines the cultural fault lines between the imagined community (Anderson, 1991) of early childhood education and some Australian Indigenous families. Through creating a social space within which Indigenous families could examine dominant and taken-for-granted discourses within early childhood education, participants could make visible assumptions and beliefs about early childhood education in Australia. Through this study, cultural tools were identified for supporting professionals to re-imagine new landscapes for early childhood education in Australia.

Comparative Analysis of Early Childhood Education in Australia and Turkey

This study investigated the relationship between children’s attendance at different types of early childhood education and care programmes and their mathematical and verbal skills. Analyses of data from 1314 children participating in an Australian longitudinal study, the E4Kids project, revealed no relationship between children’s verbal ability and the early childhood education and care programme attended, but mathematics results tell a different story. At the first measurement, children who consistently attended only informal care outperformed children who either consistently attended a formal early childhood education and care service type or attended a mix of formal and informal care. The development of mathematical and verbal competencies between first and second measurements, 1 year later, did not differ between children who attended different types of early childhood education and care. Early childhood educators in Australia are required to provide programmes that incorporate both mathematical concepts and language development. However, many early childhood educators describe uncertainty about how to support children’s mathematical learning. Further professional development and support in this area is necessary.

Despite the growing number of immigrant workers in early childhood education settings worldwide, research on educators with immigrant backgrounds remains scarce. This study aims to bridge this gap by examining the perspective of multilingual educators regarding the significance of language use in their daily pedagogical practices. The research question for this study is: how do immigrant early childhood educators in Finland and Australia experience and engage with language in their everyday educational practices? Drawing on a multiple case study approach, this research involves an in-depth case study conducted with early childhood educators in Australia and Finland ( https://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> N = 18 https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781003563433/34f60769-0230-4c02-b460-97aa88d93b5c/content/ieq0007.tif"/> ). The presented analysis focuses on the data of two educators from each country ( https://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> n = 4 https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781003563433/34f60769-0230-4c02-b460-97aa88d93b5c/content/ieq0008.tif"/> ), particularly their language practices, through interviews and personal language maps drawn by them during the interviews. After conducting a thematic content analysis of the discussions, three themes were identified from the data: (1) educators using native language as a bridge to support multilingualism; (2) educators using non-verbal linguistic cues and visual aids to support language learning; and (3) educators creating native language connections for inclusion. The educators perceive language not merely as a tool for communication but as a complex, dynamic tool that shapes cultural identity, learning experiences, emotional well-being, and community interactions in early childhood education settings. These findings reflect the thoughtful use of contextually appropriate research evidence, as outlined in the Quality Use of Research Evidence (QURE) Framework. By centring educators’ voices and experiences, the study contributes to the quality use of evidence in early childhood education for equity and inclusion.

ABSTRACTWhile research investigating the mediatisation of education policy has primarily been undertaken in school contexts, this paper reports on a study conducted in the context of early childhood education. The paper examines how a major policy in early childhood education in Australia – the National Quality Framework – has been mediatised in selected newspapers. Drawing on Foucauldian, critical discourse analysis and mediatisation theorising, we utilised the corpus linguistic tools of WordSmith Tools 6.0 to inform content analyses of 121 articles from two major media corporations, News Corp and Fairfax. Our findings highlight the utility of treating our data as two distinct corpora, with each corporation found to have utilised discursive technologies to proffer competing positionings of the Framework. The contested nature of the Framework – generally purported in Fairfax to be a tool that supports quality early education, as opposed to News Corp’s framing of the policy as one that inhibits affordable childcare – poses implications for which advocacy groups are regarded by the media as having authority and thus likely to influence policy through the reporting of their voices. Implications for newspaper media as a discursive influence on parents’ childcare decision-making are also considered.

Interventions in the field of early childhood education policy, drawn from global policy flows, are reconfiguring the work of early childhood educators in Australia. One such intervention is the requirement to designate an ‘educational leader’ (EL) in each service for young children and their families. This policy intervention has its origins in England's Early Years Professional Status initiative. This paper compares the pedagogical leader imagined in regulatory reforms with the educational labour described in interviews with childcare educators in Queensland and Victoria, Australia. The paper argues these educators are being called upon to navigate the tension between ‘imagined’ and ‘actual’ policy effects and that this is a key part of the work of educational leadership. Such leadership includes re-constituting ‘teachers’ in early childhood services as ‘learners’ who are ‘led’ by ‘ELs’, requiring major shifts in professional knowledge and practice.

Feminism has multiple definitions and even more manifestations, but many women working in the late nineteenth century/early twentieth century for the development of early childhood education in Australia were undeniably feminists, part of what has been called the “first wave of feminism” (Krolokke and Sorenson 2006). This chapter looks at the views and activities of some of these women who were prominent in the establishment of kindergartens in New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria. Whilst active in the women’s suffrage movements, they also advocated innovative views of education which were only just being explored in Britain and the USA. Examining their views on education give an insight into the kind of feminism they represented. Debates on women’s suffrage were relatively straightforward and indeed women’s suffrage was established remarkably early in Australia. Debates in the field of early childhood at the time, though cutting edge in terms of educational theory, were more complex in practice. The debates were often about philosophies of education, control of educational institutions, and the necessity or otherwise for training early childhood teachers and the kind of character appropriate to such teachers. One writer has argued that these debates “exemplified the issues that fractured the field of early childhood education for most of the twentieth century” (Whitehead 2010, p. 87). The fractures manifest themselves in the “second wave of feminism” in the 1970s where childcare provision was a major concern. Bitter disputes on the value of childcare between different sections of the early childhood field meant that during this second wave of feminism there was no strong united voice for feminism from the early childhood field.

Avondale has helped establish the first association for Christian early childhood educators in Australia at an inaugural conference organised and hosted by its Discipline of Education. The inter-denominational Australian Christian Early Childhood Educators Association (ACECEA) will bring academics and practitioners together to network, collaborate on research and promote informed practice. “We recognise a key strength will be unity of purpose,” says Kaye Judge, a lecturer in education (early childhood) at Avondale.

In this chapter, the authors focus on the implementation of sociocultural research on imaginative play, and on its role in children's learning and development in current Australian early childhood education and care. They explore the evolution of imaginative play in the context of a proliferation of modern digital technologies in young children's lives. The authors aim to use the concepts of the Zone of Proximal Development, scaffolding and sustained shared thinking (SST) to explore the opportunities that digitally mediated play provides for children's learning and development, They begin with the conceptualization of early childhood education in Australia in relation to the sociocultural approach to play. The authors also explore the concept of SST in connection to play within a Vygotskian framework. They provide an example from their Digital Play project to discuss the ways in which children's play manifests itself when children engage with modern digital mobile technologies such as iPads.

Wellbeing is explicitly mentioned in the United Nations Rights of the Child, and governments, humanitarian organisations, scientific and educational research internationally call for a focus on child wellbeing in the early years. Early childhood education policies, pedagogy and practice reflect this call, with curriculum frameworks, regulations and documents around the world having ‘wellbeing’ outcomes and foci. However, the concept of wellbeing is complex, intangible and multifaceted. It is important to understand how the term wellbeing is presented in key policy and pedagogical documents used by early childhood professionals as this discourse informs educational practice. A qualitative summative content analysis of key documents impacting early education practice in Australia was undertaken with the key question of understanding how the term wellbeing is defined, described and used. Results show usage of the term wellbeing is multifold and disparate, and definitions are rare and lacking contemporary perspectives. Questions arise about practice and/or policy implications that result from ‘wellbeing’ positioned as a Learning Outcome in the Australian Early Childhood Learning Framework V2.0. These findings and questions are important for early childhood education professionals and policy makers as they meet increased global imperatives to support child wellbeing in early education contexts. Discourse between education, government bodies and wellbeing science is encouraged to inform and expand current pedagogy, policy and practice in early childhood education in Australia and internationally.

A child’s right to high quality education not only relies on a competent and skilled workforce, but one in which educators are well. Supporting a well workforce requires governments, organisations and educators to attend to work environment quality. This attention needs be based on sound, relevant evidence. In this paper we contribute evidence of educators’ well-being from the survey component of an Australian study with 73 participants. We map results against international guidelines, and policy openings in Australia’s National Quality Standard to understand how educators’ work environments are affecting their well-being. We conclude that existing policies on quality in early childhood education in Australia attend to only some features of work environments, with a notable absence of attention to supporting educators in the relational complexities of their work. To enable educators to provide high quality education and care, greater attention is needed by organisations and governments to what quality work environments might look like.

Theory-informed practice has a long tradition within the profession of early childhood education in Australia and internationally. Aligned with longstanding policy and curriculum in Australia, the profession has seen a prominence of resources informed by biological, behaviourism/socio-behaviourist, social learning, psycho-genetic, cultural-historical, critical and poststructuralist theories. Despite the plethora of theories being supported within early childhood education and care, little research has been directed to determining if and how educators use theory to inform their play practices. This paper takes up the challenge by surveying 200 Australian early childhood educators about the theories that were most relevant to their practices and the models of play that informed their day-to-day work in centres. Higher qualified educators were informed most by cultural-historical theory whilst technically qualified educators were more guided by social learning theory. Playwork was the model of play found to be most familiar to all educators. However, the results also show a limited alignment between theories of learning and development and models of play, suggesting an interesting contradiction in understandings of educators that is worthy of further research.