scholarly journals Traditions of Argumentation in Teachers’ Responses to Multilingualism in Early Childhood Education

2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-280
Author(s):  
Anne Kultti ◽  
Niklas Pramling
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Professional Practice ◽  
Linguistically Diverse ◽  
Culturally And Linguistically Diverse ◽  
Rhetorical Strategy ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Experience Teaching ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Diverse Groups

AbstractIn this study, we investigate how professionals in early childhood education (ECE) reason about multilingualism. Empirical data are analyzed in terms of ‘traditions of argumentation’ which proposes that we cannot argue for something without, explicitly or implicitly, arguing against something else. The analyses use transcribed data from two focus groups conducted with teachers in two preschools in Sweden. These teachers had experience teaching culturally and linguistically diverse groups of children. The reoccurring rhetorical strategy used by the teachers to talk about their work with multilingual children used a set of contrasts. Three contrasts were identified: (1) I/we versus them (others); (2) here-and-now versus there-and-then; and (3) building ECE on research versus personal experience. The study has implications for teachers and students in preschool teacher education to understand the possible tensions and contrasts inherent in teaching culturally and linguistically diverse children. Rather than simplifying professional practice to either side of a dichotomy, teachers should be encouraged to understand and verbalize the bases of their professional knowledge, and understand the different positions from which they draw knowledge to inform practice.

scholarly journals Cultural diversity in the Australian early childhood education workforce: What do we know, what don’t we know and why is it important?

2021 ◽  
pp. 183693912110572
Author(s):  
Sene Gide ◽  
Sandie Wong ◽  
Frances Press ◽  
Belinda Davis
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Small Body ◽  
Linguistically Diverse ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
The Status ◽  
Potential Benefits ◽  
Australian Bureau Of Statistics ◽  
Multicultural Workforce

This paper reviews current literature and research relevant to the Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) Early Childhood Education (ECE) workforce in Australia, including data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Australia is a highly multicultural society, with one out of every three people born overseas. Anecdotally, the Australian early childhood sector is reported to have a highly multicultural workforce. Yet there is a noticeable lack of data and research concerning cultural diversity in the Australian ECE workforce. This paper reports on the data from the ABS-Census of Population and Housing (ABS-Census), the small body of literature on the CALD ECE workforce and literature pertaining to CALD in other Australian workforces to argue that more data and research is needed. Developing a richer understanding of the status, experience and contributions of CALD educators would enable the sector to recognise and support the potential benefits of such a workforce for children and families and social cohesion in Australia.

Development of Linguistic Abilities in Bilingual Education Through Musical Stories

2019 ◽  
pp. 575-587
Author(s):  
Adela González Fernández
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Bilingual Education ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Music Literature ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
New Methodologies

Bilingual education at the earlier stages of education is one of the main concerns of current governments and educative policies. This is resulting in the proliferation of new methodologies and educative proposals in order to obtain the best possible results. However, most of the time, teachers and educators focus on teaching linguistic elements in isolation. The aim of this chapter is to propose the use of musical tales in bilingual education in early childhood education as a tool for teachers and students to learn to communicate fluently in the foreign language. The use of music, literature, and drama in the same activity makes the perfect combination to help children learn a new language, since it improves aspects like vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and the communicative compentence in general.

Developmental Fossils—Unearthing the Artefacts of Early Childhood Education: The Reification of ‘Child Development’

2005 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 2-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilyn Fleer
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Child Development ◽  
World View ◽  
Linguistically Diverse ◽  
Conceptual Tool ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Cultural Legacy ◽  
New Thinking

In recent years sociocultural theory has provided an important conceptual tool for re-thinking many practices in early childhood education (e.g. Anning, Cullen & Fleer, 2004; Edwards, 2001; Edwards, 2003). While much has been gained, many taken-for-granted practices still remain in need of critique. Although the term ‘Child Development’ has been debated in the past (see collection of papers in Fleer, 1995; Keesing-Styles & Hedges, in press; Lubeck, 1996; 1998), we have not seen the emergence of a new approach or world view to replace it Ten years have passed, and we still find national materials which foreground Western middle-class notions of development (e.g. Responses to the National Agenda for Early Childhood, Australian Government, 2003). This paper seeks to stimulate debate within Australia and New Zealand around the term ‘Child Development’. Responses are invited so that the historical and cultural legacy of that term can be examined and a new term introduced which recognises our culturally and linguistically diverse communities. It is through public debate that we can as a scholarly community build new terminology to name and make visible new thinking.

scholarly journals Queering the Data: The Somatechnics of English Early Childhood Education and Care Teachers

Somatechnics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikki Fairchild
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Professional Practice ◽  
Teacher Practices ◽  
Developmentally Appropriate ◽  
Assessment Practices ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Recording Process ◽  
Education And Care

Education has increasingly been consumed by neoliberal expectations that result in the need for data to be collected to justify regulative, pedagogical, curricular, and teaching practices. The marketisation of higher education requires more quantitative measurement of student attainment and progress which impacts on pedagogy and provision. Working with Karen Barad's theorisations of spacetimemattering, agential cuts, intra-action, and diffractive analysis, I draw on research with Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) teachers who were working and concurrently studying on a degree programme. Empirical data was generated from a focus group discussing the influences of data recording software on the teachers and their professional practice, the devices used as part of the recording process, and the curricular expectations during children's assessment. Scholars have argued that the need to ensure children meet developmentally appropriate milestones in ECEC can lead to performative, technicist teacher practices driven by data and that these practices may result in datafication and ‘dividual’ subjectivities ( Deleuze 1992 ). Entangling with material-discursive productions between ECEC teachers and ‘data’ provides a new contribution to understanding the influence of other-than-human bodies on the process of dividualisation and its impact on professional practice. Although focussing on ECEC teachers and their assessment practices, the outcomes of the analysis are connected to higher education, which is facing similar pressures for student progress. In line with the theme of this issue of Somatechnics, I discuss how putting to work Barad's agential realism can articulate and rethink both human and other-than-human matterings by revealing how some ‘agential cuts’ reinforce deficit dividual discourse. In turn, this can help us move beyond datafication and dividual practice.

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