scholarly journals Reconceptualizing Our Work: The Connection Between ECE Students and Political Action

2019 ◽  
pp. 123-133
Author(s):  
Michelle Jones ◽  
Brooke Richardson ◽  
Alana Powell
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Child Care ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Student Leaders ◽  
Childhood Studies ◽  
Political Capacity ◽  
Education Students ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Education And Care

This paper takes the position that early childhood education students are an underutilized resource in strengthening the Canadian child care advocacy movement. The authors come to this topic as undergraduate and graduate students and a contract lecturer member in Ryerson’s early childhood studies program. Over the past year and a half, we have worked with our peers and colleagues to establish and lead the Ryerson Student Childcare Advocacy Association. Drawing on student movement and devaluation of care literature, this paper describes and explores our opportunities and experiences reconceptualizing the value of early childhood education and care that motivated us to become student leaders in the child care advocacy movement. Ultimately, we hope to both illustrate that students can and do make a meaningful difference in advocacy efforts and inspire and support postsecondary early childhood education programs to build the political capacity of students in the broader child care movement.

Inclusion in Early Childhood: Difference, Disability, and Social Justice

Education ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Underwood ◽  
Gillian Parekh
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Intervention ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Inclusive Education ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Childhood Studies ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
School Settings ◽  
Education And Care

Inclusive education as a model of service delivery arose out of disability activism and critiques of special education. To understand inclusive education in early childhood, however, one must also engage with broader questions of difference, diversity, and social justice as they intersect with childhood studies. To that end, this article contains references that include other critical discourses on childhood and inclusivity as well as critiques of inclusive education. Inclusive education has a much deeper body of research in formal school settings than in the early years. School-based research, however, often examines social relationships and academic achievement as outcome measures. This research has established that education situated in a child’s community and home school is generally more effective than special education settings, particularly when classroom educators have access to appropriate training, resources, policies, and leadership. Schools, of course, are part of the education landscape of the early years, but they are not inclusive of the full spectrum or early years settings. The early years literature on inclusion is different in focusing more attention on development, family, and community (as described in the General Overview of Early Childhood Inclusion). A critique of early childhood education research has focused on school readiness and rehabilitation and the efficacy of early identification and early intervention. This research is largely informed by Western medical research, but this approach has led global institutions to set out priorities for early intervention without recognizing how our worldview shapes our understanding of childhood and difference. The dominant research domain, however, has also identified that family and community contexts are important. This recognition creates a fundamental difference between inclusion research in school settings and such research in early childhood education and care. Early childhood education and care has always focused on the child and their family as the recipients of services, while educational interest in the family has been viewed as a setting in which the conditions for learning are established. Support for families is at the center of early childhood inclusive practice, both because families are largely responsible for seeking out early childhood disability services and because families are critical in children’s identity. Inclusion in schools and early childhood education and care can both be understood through theories of disability, ability, and capability. In both settings, education and care have social justice aims linked not only to developmental and academic outcomes for individual children, but also to the ways that these programs reproduce inequality. Disability as a social phenomenon has its historical roots in racist and colonial practices, understood through critical race theory, that are evident today in both early childhood and school settings. Understanding the links between disableism and other forms of discrimination and oppression is critical both for teaching for social justice broadly and for better understanding of how ability, capability, and critical disability theory and childhood studies are established through practices that begin in the early years.

Social Habitus in Childhood

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Childhood Studies ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Education And Care ◽  
Class Habitus

The concept of habitus is central to the work of Pierre Bourdieu (b. 1930–d. 2002) the French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher. As with all of his work, it is a concept that operates interchangeably with others (especially capital and field), to raise questions about the impact of social structures on the practices and dispositions of individuals across diverse cultural and social contexts. Habitus is central to Bourdieu’s theory of practice—how patterns of power and inequality are reproduced through the practices that are embedded in everyday life. It is the habitus—the dispositions, ways of “doing” and “being,” thinking, talking, dressing, walking—the full compendium of our preferences, tastes, and desires that reflects our orientation in the world. Habitus is not explicitly “taught”; however, it is deeply embodied—a form of “knowing” that derives from the totality of immersion within a given cultural and social context. It is this ‘knowing’ that filters expectations, setting unarticulated boundaries or possibilities for future actions depending on the habitus in play. This is the power and impact of the habitus, and, with respect to social class (middle-class habitus/working-class habitus), clear patterns of advantage accrue to those whose habitus is most valued and recognized, that of the elites and middle class in society. This is especially evident, for example, in the field of education, which Bourdieu argued, embodies the middle-class habitus to the detriment of those from the working classes, who inevitably exit the system with lower rates of success. While Bourdieu was especially focused on dynamics related to social class stratification, the concept of habitus has been used widely in sociological studies. As a concept it is very applicable to childhood studies, providing an important frame of reference to analyze how diverse social structures influence the dispositions of children across different contexts. Further, as an action-oriented concept it aligns with the emphasis within childhood studies on children’s agency, providing a mechanism to explore how such agency is both enabled and /or constrained by the contexts within which children find themselves. As early childhood education and care takes increasing precedence, the concept has also been extended for use in relation to early childhood education and care settings. Typically, the concept of habitus focuses on issues related to language, literacy, and social class dynamics that influence children’s capacities to engage with their learning and education. However its flexibility as a concept—exactly as Bourdieu intended—ensures that it has been drawn on to explore the realities of children’s lives in their families, communities, and schools, including studies of children’s ethnic, gendered, and class relations; academic achievement; parenting practices; and leisure activities.

Early Childhood Education and Care in Canada

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Johnston ◽  
Leah Shoemaker ◽  
Nicole Land ◽  
Aurelia Di Santo ◽  
Susan Jagger
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Child Care ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early Learning ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Early Child Care ◽  
Education And Care

The field of early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Canada has been informed by a myriad of influences and these factors continue to shift and shape the curriculum, pedagogy, research, and practice in Canadian ECEC. Historically, following many of the theories and practices embraced by the United States, early child-care centers, day nurseries, and kindergartens were established to alleviate pressures on overcrowded schools and allow for mothers to work outside of the home. At the same time, Canadian child care took on a broader role in social welfare and later social justice, working to reduce inequities and inequality. These motivations have not been shared across all ECEC, and this is particularly evident in Indigenous early education. Here, Indigenous children and families have endured the horror of the residential school system and its legacy of colonialism, trauma, and cultural genocide. Along with these underpinning histories, Canadian ECEC has been informed by, is continuing to be shaped by, and is beginning to be guided by a number of models and movements in early learning. These include developmentalism, child-centered pedagogies, Reggio Emilia approaches, children’s rights, holistic education, the reconceptualist movement, and postdevelopmentalism, and many of these approaches are not mutually exclusive. Finally, the policies and practices at federal, provincial, and municipal levels and the unique tensions between these levels of government structure Canadian ECEC policy and practice. Provincial and Indigenous early learning frameworks are created to enhance educator understandings and application of program principles, values, and goals, and these embrace responsive relationships with children and families, reflective practice, the importance of the environment and play in learning, and respect of diversity, equity, and inclusion, to name but a few shared principles. Taken together, the complexity of ECEC in Canada is clear, with historical approaches and attitudes continuing to preserve structures that devalue children and those who work with them, while concurrently efforts continue to honor the rights and voices of all children, advocate for professionalization in the field of ECEC, and reveal and reconcile past and current truths and injustices in Indigenous children’s education and care, in order to support and heal all children, families, and communities.

scholarly journals Superdiversity as a trajectory of diversity in Norwegian early childhood education and care: From a collection of differences to participation and becoming

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 284-296
Author(s):  
Alicja R Sadownik
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Education Students ◽  
Institutional Practice ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Education And Care ◽  
Teacher Education Students ◽  
Care Teacher

This article uses the concept of ‘superdiversity’ as a lens through which various conceptualisations of diversity in Norwegian early childhood education and care policies and professionals’ understandings are made visible. Although Norwegian early childhood education and care is expected to highlight, value, and promote diversity and mutual respect, little has been written on how diversity is actually understood by professionals as part of early childhood education and care institutional practice. On the basis of interviews with 2 migration pedagogues, 10 early childhood education and care teachers, and 15 early childhood education and care teacher education students, the following conceptualisations of diversity were reconstructed: diversity as embodied by different children and families; diversity as a social context for every child’s becoming; and diversity as equal participation. Each of these accounts involved ways of working with children and families from minority and majority backgrounds, and ‘diversity as a social context for every child’s becoming’ seemed to be most in line with the Norwegian curriculum. The curriculum focuses on the process of formative development/becoming, which overlaps with and may be meaningfully supplemented by superdiversity. However, superdiversity as a sociological concept requires careful operationalisation in dialogue with the field and its empirics .

scholarly journals Developing an Integrated Model to Early Childhood Education and Care in Vietnam: Perspectives of Early Childhood Educators

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 58-65
Author(s):  
Thanh Van Thai ◽  
Hien Ngoc Nguyen ◽  
An Nhu Nguyen ◽  
Thu Hung Phan ◽  
Hung Van Bui ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Child Care ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Integrated Model ◽  
Early Childhood Educators ◽  
Average Score ◽  
Self Assessment ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Education And Care

The partnership between school, family and community for the development and care of children has been interested in research by many scientists. This study aims to investigate Vietnamese early childhood educators’ perspectives on an integrated model to early childhood education and care in Vietnam. A self-assessment tool with 5 standards and 15 criteria was administered to 420 teachers working in 30 kindergartens across 6 provinces of Vietnam. The self-assessment tool considered 5 areas of the school, family and community partnerships, including: planning and building childcare education environments; connecting and sharing information between the school, family and the community in child care and education; coordinating in individual child education; making decisions about policies related to child care and education; and evaluating child development. Through average score analysis, the results show that early childhood educators in Vietnam stressed the significance of school, family and community involvement in early childhood education and care.

Social Investment and Childcare Expansion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margarita León
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Perfect Match ◽  
Preschool Education ◽  
Conceptual Level ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Education And Care

The chapter first examines at a conceptual level the links between theories of social investment and childcare expansion. Although ‘the perfect match’ between the two is often taken for granted in the specialized literature as well as in policy papers, it is here argued that a more nuance approach that ‘unpacks’ this relationship is needed. The chapter will then look for elements of variation in early childhood education and care (ECEC) expansion. Despite an increase in spending over the last two decades in many European and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, wide variation still exists in the way in which ECEC develops. A trade-off is often observed between coverage and quality of provision. A crucial dividing line that determines, to a large extent, the quality of provision in ECEC is the increasing differentiation between preschool education for children aged 3 and above and childcare for younger children.

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