Work In Early Childhood Education Research Articles

Novas formas de brincar respeitando a natureza: um trabalho de reciclagem na educação infantil

O presente artigo é baseado na monografia intitulada NOVAS FORMAS DE BRINCAR RESPEITANDO A NATUREZA: UM TRABALHO DE RECICLAGEM NA EDUCAÇÃO INFANTIL, do curso de Educação Ambiental da Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, apresentada no dia 29 de julho de 2011. O trabalho foi realizado com alunos da Escola Municipal de Educação Infantil Gente Miúda e teve como objetivos possibilitar aos educandos conhecimentos, sentido de valores, interesse ativo eatitudes necessárias para respeitar, proteger e melhorar o meio ambiente, alertando-os sobre o problema da grande produção de resíduos e a necessidade de consumo consciente. Como estratégias metodológicas, foram utilizados momentos de conversas, exploração de filmes, histórias, músicas e atividades dirigidas. Como forma de registro, foi desenvolvida reciclagem de materiais e confecção de brinquedos e instrumentos musicais, experiências com resíduos, desenhos e cartilha, enfatizando a importância da reciclagem desses resíduos. A análise dos dados concorda com o referencial teórico, confirmando a ideia de a criança aprende através de atividades lúdicas e amplia seus conhecimentos por meio de interações e socializações mediadas pela intervenção do educador, quando oferece subsídios para que os educandos analisem e contribuam para a conservação do meio ambiente. A Educação Ambiental trabalhada na Educação Infantil contribui para a construção de novos olhares e atitudes para com a natureza, os outros e consigo.

<b>A criança e o professor na Educação Infantil: representações de alunos do curso de Pedagogia</b>

Tendo como aporte teórico a teoria das Representações Sociais - RS de Moscovici e seguidores, pretendemos investigar a interferência dos processos de formação inicial nas representações que os futuros profissionais docentes têm e constroem sobre o trabalho pedagógico na Educação Infantil. Adotamos como objetivos específicos: identificar junto aos alunos em formação para a docência na educação infantil no curso de Pedagogia da FCT/Unesp e do CPAN/UFMS como se estruturam as representações sociais sobre a profissão docente, sobre a especificidade do trabalho pedagógico e sobre as crianças com as quais exercerá a docência; analisar continuidades e transformações nas RS no decorrer do processo de formação inicial, procurando identificar se o processo formativo e as práticas educativas adotadas são capazes de imprimir alterações nas RS preexistentes e, comparar as representações dos estudantes. O estudo, de caráter longitudinal, acompanhará os estudantes entre os anos de 2009 e 2012, utilizando como instrumentos para obtenção dos dados questionários, texto narrativo e entrevistas. O tratamento dos dados se dará com auxílio de softwares estatísticos (Evoc, Alceste e SPSS) e da análise de conteúdo (BARDIN, 1979). Encontramos RS entre os estudantes das duas universidades que não se adequam ao perfil de professor de crianças pequenas e a concepção de criança/infância na contemporaneidade.

Meaning making, democratic participation and art in early childhood education: Can inspiring objects structure dynamic curricula?

Young students' democratic participation in the pedagogical work of early childhood education is required by law in Norway. In order to explore pedagogical methods, which allow students' democratic participation in visual arts curricula, an action research project with a sociocultural profile was conducted. Generating space for the students' contributions required ongoing interpretation and reflection during the pedagogical work, and through this process a new understanding of curricula as dynamic emerged. During the research project the teachers and students mutually and continuously influenced each other's meaning making. This challenged the teachers to search for a suitable balance between planning and pedagogical improvisation, which involved careful listening to children. The findings from the study suggest that flexible curricula can be structured around careful choices of inspirational objects (stories, sculptures, art paintings and art materials) in art-based and interdisciplinary work in early childhood education.

The Effects of Preschool Education: What We Know, How Public Policy Is or Is Not Aligned With the Evidence Base, and What We Need to Know.

Early childhood education is at the nexus of basic developmental science, policy research and analysis, and the applied disciplines of education and prevention science. The field has become one of the most vibrant areas of scientific activity in terms of the connections among scientific advances and theory, program design, policy, and classroom practices. But despite the potential links between research and evaluation on the one hand and program development, practices, and public policy on the other, there are too many key areas in which public policy and practice are not well aligned with the knowledge base. These misalignments, as well as a host of questions emerging from new areas of scientific development (e.g., connections between physiological or genetic processes and behavioral development) and practice-based realities (e.g., the need for focused, intensive, and effective professional development of teachers), point to areas in which new research is needed. The aim of this monograph is to provide an analysis of the research evidence in four major domains of work in early childhood education, identifying points at which evidence is not well aligned with public policy or practice, and a set of questions to guide the next wave of research in this rapidly growing field. Overall features of the preschool landscape, including those tightly regulated by policy (such as entry age or eligibility) and those more directly related to child outcomes (such as quality of classroom interactions), are stunningly variable across settings and across time. Reasonable evidence suggests that these features also vary as a function of family background factors. The resulting picture is one of too many children and families falling through too many cracks and seams at too many levels. Thus, even in a policy and program development environment in which early education is valued and prominent and recognition of the need to close gaps and seal seams is growing, the realities point to a fragile and vulnerable nonsystem through which many of our most fragile and vulnerable citizens pass. Demographic shifts will place tremendous pressure on early education and child care in the United States in the coming decades—a trend that is well under way in many states. The consequences for preschool program eligibility and enrollment, available slots, preparation and support of staff, and program resources such as curricula are enormous. It is abundantly evident that the features of the preschool landscape—connections among child care, preschool, and schools; links between families and the adults who teach their children; capacities of the ‘‘system’’ for fostering positive development in children who increasingly vary by race, culture, language, and economic background—will undergo tremendous strain. The pressures imposed on this context and these relationships by the sheer variability present in the children and families will itself be a considerable threat to the viability of the capacity of preschool to promote positive developmental change. Compelling evidence from well-controlled research shows that preschool programs have lasting positive effects on young children’s cognitive and social development. The evidence comes from studies of child care, Head Start, and public school programs using a wide range of research methods, including experiments. Lasting positive impacts have been found for large-scale public programs as well as for intensive programs implemented on a small scale, but even some of the intensive small-scale interventions were public school programs. Some evidence has shown negative effects on social behavior, but the negative effects have not been confirmed by experimental studies. Cost–benefit analyses have shown that

Labor Market and Teaching Staff Considerations for Making Early Childhood Education Work for Migrant Head Start Teachers: The Case of Michigan Migrant Head Start

This paper considers the case of the Michigan Migrant Head Start program to describe and analyze the labor market conditions and teaching staff characteristics to identify the challenges faced by Migrant Head Start grantees in attracting, hiring, retaining, and training degreed teachers. The emphasis is on describing and analyzing the child care labor market characteristics that confront Migrant Head Start grantees in upstream locations and on describing the characteristics and opinions of Migrant Head Start teachers and interpreting their significance for developing educational programs that facilitate the ability of Migrant Head Start teachers to become degreed in early childhood education. The implications of the findings for making early childhood education work for Migrant Head Start teachers are discussed from the perspective of administrators of Migrant Head Start programs and teacher preparation programs at community colleges and universities. The title of the original submission to the JECTE was “The Challenges to Increase the Number of Head Start Teachers with Required Degrees: The Case of Michigan, Migrant Head Start.” We would like to thank the blind reviewers of the original manuscript and the editor of the JECTE for their inspiring comments, which led to a near complete rewrite of the original manuscript.

Issues in early childhood education in Europe

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.

International work in early childhood education: a UNESCO perspective

Abstract After defining UNESCO's place in the United Nations system, the author outlines the new situation that has arisen in recent years for the world's children. Although infant mortality rates continue to give concern, the major problem that international organisations have now to face is not the question of children's survival but their development. Research shows that the vital age for developmental inputs is early childhood, without which the chances of later learning achievement are severely diminished. The proposed ECD Programming Model attempts to take into account present research on early child development as well as the socio‐economic context of developing countries, where governments are increasingly unable to provide basic services.

The policy implications of compensation and working conditions in three publicly funded early childhood systems

This article analyzes the policy implications of disparate compensation and working conditions associated with teaching in three publicly funded early childhood systems. Survey data from 559 teachers (336 public school, 134 publicly funded child care, and 89 Head Start) included information on level of training, credentials held, course work in early childhood education, workforce stability, and future career plans. Unacceptable rates of teacher turnover and vacancy in the nonpublic school programs were predicted by differences in compensation and working conditions. The results are discussed in the context of what is known about the quality of early childhood programs and the increasing involvement of public schools in programs for young children.