Context Of Early Childhood Education Research Articles

Distributed leadership: Utilising everyone's strengths

Research shows that leadership plays a significant role in the process of educational change and improvement (Day, Harris, Hadfield, Tolley, & Beresford, 2000; Fullan, 1992; Hargreaves, 1994; Sergiovani, 2001). There are many different theories about leadership and the types of leadership that are most effective in bringing about change and improvement. Pedagogical leadership commands particular interest because it is pedagogy that impacts most immediately on children. Pedagogical leadership has been described as leaders attending to the behaviours of teachers as they engage in activities directly affecting the growth of students (Leithwood, Jantzi, & Steinbach, 1999, p. 8). Pedagogical leadership is also about motivating and convincing teachers to do things differently and producing evidence that change is worthwhile and beneficial to children and teachers' learning. Recently there has been emerging groundswell of support for a new kind of leadership which is promising to have positive effects on educational quality and pedagogy. This new approach to leadership is usually described as or leadership (Harris, 2002). The notion of distributed leadership comes from the premise that educational change and raising student levels of achievement are never the sole responsibility of the principal, supervisor or head teacher, and that the people with these roles cannot accomplish improved outcomes on their own. Distributed leadership recognises the role that all professionals within educational setting play in implementing change, and that it is through collaboration and collectivity that expertise is developed. Distributed leadership also recognises that everyone has their own strengths and interests, and that encouraging team members to utilise their strengths affords them greater agency and motivation. A useful definition of distributed leadership suggested by Bennett, Wise, Woods and Harvey (2003) incorporates the following elements: an emergent property of a group or network of interacting individuals, openness of the boundaries of leadership, and varieties of expertise distributed across many rather than the few (p. 7). A number of studies carried out in schools (Day et al., 2000; Silins & Mudford, 2002; Southworth, 2002) and a small study in three early childhood centres in Aotearoa New Zealand (Thornton, 2005) attest to this theory about distributed leadership encouraging expertise and valuing everyone's contribution. This notion of a capable and team of teachers within either a school or early childhood centre resonates nicely with the aspirational statement in Te Whariki that children grow up as competent and confident learners (Ministry of Education, 1996, p. 9). Distributed or shared leadership also seems to connect especially well with the contexts of early childhood education. Because of the ratio of teachers to children required, and the expectation that children in centres are able to move freely between the indoor and outdoor environment, teachers in early childhood centres in Aotearoa New Zealand need to operate in teams. The author of the study this article is based on, which was conducted as part of a master's thesis, was interested in investigating why teachers decided to be involved in a model of professional development that emphasises leadership, and what made them continue their involvement. The study was also interested in ascertaining whether or not teachers had developed leadership skills. The research used the Educational Leadership Project (ELP), independent professional development provider focusing on centre-wide pedagogical improvement and shared leadership, as a case study. Eleven teachers from three different early childhood centres participated in the research. The centres had all completed at least two years with ELP. Individual interviews were conducted with the 11 teachers, giving them opportunity to tell their stories. …

Exploring trauma, loss and healing: spirituality, Te Whāriki and early childhood education

Attention to spirituality is proposed to be a means of restoring and supporting well‐being in early childhood educational contexts. In Aotearoa, New Zealand, the spiritual dimension is included in the early childhood curriculum Te Whāriki. This holistic approach to education supported research in three different early childhood settings: a Montessori casa, a private preschool and a Rudolf Steiner kindergarten. Narratives (re)produced from the qualitative case study data are included in the article to show that young children experience and overcome adversity in their early years. The discussion is framed by the cultural theories of everyday life and attention to philosophical perspectives that encompass the spiritual. Spiritual withness, spiritual in‐betweenness and the spiritual elsewhere are introduced as spiritual and transformative spaces in these settings. This account combines research, theory and pedagogical perspectives. It describes the concept of everyday spirituality as an ameliorating factor in these stories of loss and recovery.

Science and Theatre Education: A Cross-disciplinary Approach of Scientific Ideas Addressed to Student Teachers of Early Childhood Education

There is, in Greece, an ongoing attempt to breach the boundaries established between the different teaching-learning subjects of compulsory education. In this context, we are interested in exploring to what degree the teaching and learning of ideas from the sciences’ “internal life” (Hacking, in: Pickering (ed) Science as practice and culture, 1992) benefits from creatively coming into contact with theatrical education as part of the corresponding curriculum subject. To this end, 57 students of the Early Childhood Education Department of the University of Athens were called to study extracts from Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Ptolemaic and Copernican, to focus on a subject that the Dialogue’s “interlocutors” forcefully disagree about and to theatrically represent (using shadow theatre techniques) what they considered as being the central idea of this clash of opinions. The results indicate that this attempt leads to a satisfactory understanding of ideas relating to the content and methodology of the natural sciences. At the same time, theatrical education avails itself of the representation of scientific ideas and avoids the cliches and hackneyed techniques that the (often) simplistic choices available in the educational context of early childhood education tend towards. The basic reasons for both facets of this success are: (a) Genuine scientific texts force the students to approach them with seriousness, and all the more so if these recount the manner in which scientific ideas are produced and are embedded in the historical and social context of the age that created them; (b) The theatrical framework, which essentially guides the students’ activities, allows (if not obliges) them to approach scientific issues creatively; in other words, it allows them to create something related to science and recognize it as theirs; and, (c) Both the narrative texts describing processes of “science making” (Bruner, J Sci Educ Technol 1:5–12, 1992) and theatrical expression constitute fields that are characterized by what, for the students, is a common and understandable manner of expression: the narrative.

Contextualising early Childhood Education

A critical and constructive postrnodern perspective can be a useful tool for contextualising the field of early childhood education. One way this can be done is by situating the seven studies that appear in this issue of AJEC through multiple social, cultural, political, historical, local and global contexts. In doing so, the relationships between these issues are highlighted. Additionally, the ways in which the researchers, participants, settings, data collection strategies, and findings are connected amongst these studies becomes evident. This approach, which does not necessarily imply that the articles should be read in a linear fashion, is about intentionally framing ideas in ways that might generate different understandings about what we do in early childhood and why we do it. The articles found within this edition of AJEC focus on social issues that are commonly debated and discussed in early childhood education. These issues include poverty, sex education, childcare quality, personal and social skills, repeated viewings of videos, and regulatory frameworks. These issues become more problematic and complex when viewed from various contexts. In doing so, these studies and their findings take on a different set of meanings--making it possible to see how the field of early childhood education is connected, and raising new questions about teaching, learning, and researching, The cultural contexts of early childhood education and how they influence research is apparent in Lai's preliminary study. However, if this study of teachers' perceptions of sex education in Hong Kong preschools were conducted with teachers from South Africa, the United States or Ireland, would it reveal similar findings? Likewise, da Silva and Wise's study is firmly located within the cultural context of families. This study of parent perspectives on childcare quality focuses on the cultural background of participants as a potential source of difference among parents. King and Boardman's study of teachers' and parents' insights into the importance of personal and social skills for young children beginning kindergarten is situated within the context of preschool. By locating this study before formal schooling, readiness becomes an important issue for both parents and teachers. Also, by highlighting the different contexts of parents and teachers it becomes possible to see how these participants view the role of early childhood education. Framing these studies within a professional context illuminates how particular topics or experiences are considered to be either 'appropriate' or 'inappropriate' for young children. …

‘Queerying’ Gender: Heteronormativity in early Childhood Education

This paper explores heteronormativity and argues for the ‘queerying’ of gender in early childhood education. The author argues, utilising Butler's theory of performativity and heterosexual matrix, that the construction of gender in young children's lives requires an analysis of the normalising practices in which gendered identities are simultaneously heterosexualised. It is upheld that the dominant discourse of childhood in conjunction with developmentalist theory render sexuality as irrelevant to children's lives, thus resulting in a radical silencing and dismissal of how children become sexualised subjects. Thus these discourses operate to render invisible the process of heteronormativity operating in children's lives, including in early childhood educational contexts. It is argued that, if the intimate relationship between gender and sexuality is not incorporated into understandings of constructions of gendered identities, we will continue to get only a partial perspective of what is happening in this process

Beginning Reading and Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP): Past, Present, and Future

In this article, I address issues and trends, past, present, and future, in beginning reading instruction. I also trace the development of a related issue in the broader context of early childhood education: developmentally appropriate practice. Historical changes in reading education for young learners, as well as changes concerning guidelines for developmentally appropriate practice, are addressed. I conclude by suggesting that the fields of reading education and early childhood education share more similarities than differences. With collaborative initiatives, these two fields can strengthen their positive impact on the education of young learners as beginning readers.