Issues in early childhood education in Europe

Abstract

SUMMARY The work of early childhood educators in most European countries has been informed by theory and research underpinned by developmental psychology. This discipline is being questioned, not only by psychologists themselves but by those from other backgrounds and this is to be welcomed as a healthy sign in a rapidly changing and diverse world. Many of our commonly held assumptions are derived from basing much of our thinking on the theories and research of developmental psychologists. The need for early childhood educators to problematise these and their own assumptions is called for, in an attempt to explore the possibilities and paradoxes of common understandings and recognition for babies and young children's personhood in the ‘postmodern’ era.