scholarly journals Structural Dissonance, Enacted Hope and Initial Early Childhood Teacher Education in Aotearoa/New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Bradley Robert John Hannigan

<p>This thesis argues that there is structural dissonance in university-based initial early childhood teacher education programmes in Aotearoa/New Zealand, and suggests a pedagogy of enacted hope as a countermeasure. In this thesis, structural dissonance is constructed as a form of structural violence, which is based on the contradiction between socioculturalism in the content of IECTE programmes and individualisation in the context in which they are provided. This theoretical thesis uses Richard Rorty’s (1979, 1982, 1989, 1999) neo-pragmatic assumptions on truth, reality and knowledge to provide a coherent and consistent approach to the argument of structural dissonance and enacted hope. Distinctions between truth and justification, reality and appearance, found and made are rejected, and utility for social justice, language use, and an ironist approach to scholarship are adopted. This thesis uses philosophical hermeneutics as a methodology for interpreting the textual sources that make up the data drawn upon in this thesis. This methodology is linked to interpretive scholarship, research bricolage, and the constructivist paradigm in qualitative research. The methods used in this thesis are an ecological hermeneutic, ideal type method (converted into an interpretive method of textual analysis) and focus groups of student teachers. This thesis constructed two ideal types. The ideal type for socioculturalism is used to argue that the content of IECTE programmes is heavily influenced by socioculturalism. The ideal type for individualisation is used to argue that the context in which IECTE programmes are provided reproduces individualisation. Socioculturalism and individualisation are shown to be dissonant in the structure of a case IECTE programme in Aotearoa/New Zealand resulting in a situation of structural dissonance. A pedagogy of enacted hope is then proposed to counteract structural dissonance in the case study IECTE programme in Aotearoa/New Zealand. This pedagogy is constructed using a theory of hope developed through the integration of Ernst Bloch’s (1986) philosophy of hope, Rortyan philosophical assumptions and enactivist learning theory. Implications of using the pedagogy of enacted hope are then discussed in relation to the problem of structural dissonance.</p>

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Bradley Robert John Hannigan

<p>This thesis argues that there is structural dissonance in university-based initial early childhood teacher education programmes in Aotearoa/New Zealand, and suggests a pedagogy of enacted hope as a countermeasure. In this thesis, structural dissonance is constructed as a form of structural violence, which is based on the contradiction between socioculturalism in the content of IECTE programmes and individualisation in the context in which they are provided. This theoretical thesis uses Richard Rorty’s (1979, 1982, 1989, 1999) neo-pragmatic assumptions on truth, reality and knowledge to provide a coherent and consistent approach to the argument of structural dissonance and enacted hope. Distinctions between truth and justification, reality and appearance, found and made are rejected, and utility for social justice, language use, and an ironist approach to scholarship are adopted. This thesis uses philosophical hermeneutics as a methodology for interpreting the textual sources that make up the data drawn upon in this thesis. This methodology is linked to interpretive scholarship, research bricolage, and the constructivist paradigm in qualitative research. The methods used in this thesis are an ecological hermeneutic, ideal type method (converted into an interpretive method of textual analysis) and focus groups of student teachers. This thesis constructed two ideal types. The ideal type for socioculturalism is used to argue that the content of IECTE programmes is heavily influenced by socioculturalism. The ideal type for individualisation is used to argue that the context in which IECTE programmes are provided reproduces individualisation. Socioculturalism and individualisation are shown to be dissonant in the structure of a case IECTE programme in Aotearoa/New Zealand resulting in a situation of structural dissonance. A pedagogy of enacted hope is then proposed to counteract structural dissonance in the case study IECTE programme in Aotearoa/New Zealand. This pedagogy is constructed using a theory of hope developed through the integration of Ernst Bloch’s (1986) philosophy of hope, Rortyan philosophical assumptions and enactivist learning theory. Implications of using the pedagogy of enacted hope are then discussed in relation to the problem of structural dissonance.</p>


2005 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 244-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hillevi Lenz Taguchi

This article constitutes an attempt to investigate how student teachers and teacher educators in the context of Swedish early childhood teacher education are invented and reinvented by practices that are inspired by feminist and post-structural thinking. I give examples of practice that explicitly make use of different aspects of the personal, such as subjectivities, voice and experience. These are theorized, problematized and troubled in relation to concepts of power, resistance and emancipation. The article questions the possibility of ‘getting outside’ of the regulatory regimes of power production through practices of ‘getting personal’, and asks just how much freedom is possible, even given overtly ‘emancipist’ teaching.


Author(s):  
Liv Gjems ◽  
Ida Kornerup ◽  
Bente Vatne ◽  
Vibeke Schrøder

Few studies highlight the content of early childhood teacher education (ECTE) and examine the quality of knowledge acquired by future early childhood teachers. The current study concerns two questions. The first explores the goals of the national curricula in Danish and Norwegian ECTE concerning children’s language learning and early literacy. The second explores how satisfied Danish and Norwegian student teachers are with their own subjective learning outcomes related to the same themes. To answer the first question, data were collected through document analysis of the two countries’ national curricula. To answer the second question, data were collected through a survey handed out to student teachers in both countries at the end of their education. The survey contained questions about factual, procedural, and meta-knowledge areas. The survey participants comprised 199 Norwegian student teachers from three University Colleges and 90 Danish student teachers from three separate campuses at one University College. This study reveals that the Norwegian student teachers evaluated their subjective learning outcomes in the fields of language learning and early literacy more highly than Danish student teachers. Our research points to the fact that, compared to the Norwegian ECTE, the breadth of subjects in the Danish ECTE bachelor program tends to give lower subjective learning outcomes in these knowledge areas.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth P Quintero

This qualitative study presents examples of information about and analysis of stories of children and the early childhood teacher education students working with them. The data from the stories problematize the neocolonial roots of our conceptions of children and families, particularly institutional systems, pedagogies, assessments, and daily life realities. This current study considers evolving theoretical stances to early childhood work with children and families based upon a third space that combines aspects of the Global South and the Global North. Participants are student teachers in an early childhood teacher education program and the children they work with in Southern California. Many are bi-national and their histories and current lived experiences are reflective in many ways of communities around the world where intergenerational participants of two or more cultures and language groups with different economic and political histories find themselves learning together. Many participants, both children and adult student teachers, are living and studying in the Global North and yet, they bring with them generations of family history, knowledge, linguistic perspectives, and lived experiences from the Global South. Findings suggest that through stories there is ongoing problematizing of the neocolonial roots of our conceptions of children and families and the resulting learning experiences accessible to them. The work led us to matters of concern, Latour who urges “an understanding of common worlds as worlds in the process of ‘progressive composition’.” In other words, this research illustrates a focus on relations as generative encounters with others and shared events that have mutually transformative effects.


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