scholarly journals Associations between Children’s Risky Play and ECEC Outdoor Play Spaces and Materials

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (7) ◽  
pp. 3354
Author(s):  
Ellen Beate Hansen Sandseter ◽  
Ole Johan Sando ◽  
Rasmus Kleppe
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Outdoor Play ◽  
Children's Play ◽  
Functional Play ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Education And Care ◽  
Risky Play ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Play Materials

Children spend a large amount of time each day in early childhood education and care (ECEC) institutions, and the ECEC play environments are important for children’s play opportunities. This includes children’s opportunities to engage in risky play. This study examined the relationship between the outdoor play environment and the occurrence of children’s risky play in ECEC institutions. Children (n = 80) were observed in two-minute sequences during periods of the day when they were free to choose what to do. The data consists of 935 randomly recorded two-minute videos, which were coded second by second for several categories of risky play as well as where and with what materials the play occurred. Results revealed that risky play (all categories in total) was positively associated with fixed equipment for functional play, nature and other fixed structures, while analysis of play materials showed that risky play was positively associated with wheeled toys. The results can support practitioners in developing their outdoor areas to provide varied and exciting play opportunities.

scholarly journals Affordances for 1- to 3-year-olds’ risky play in Early Childhood Education and Care

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 258-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rasmus Kleppe
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Rating Scale ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Complex Environments ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Education And Care ◽  
Risky Play

This article focuses on how Early Childhood Education and Care institutions provide for 1- to 3-year-olds’ risky play—a previously little researched topic—utilizing data from an exploratory, small-scale study investigating aspects of risky play in the age-group. The main findings describe how three essentially different Early Childhood Education and Care centers provide different opportunities for risky play. These environments are assessed with the theoretical concept of affordance and suggest that versatile, flexible, and complex environments and equipment—with little objective risk—are optimal for children’s risky play in this age-group. Being a new topic, the affordance assessment is discussed in relation to a standardized measurement, the Infant-Toddler Environment Rating Scale—Revised edition. Findings indicate that the two approaches partly coincide but also that there are discrepancies. Interpretations and implications are discussed.

“Caballito blanco, ¡vuelve pa’ tu pueblo!”: Troubling and reclaiming the historical foundations of Chilean early childhood education

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ximena Galdames Castillo
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Curriculum And Pedagogy ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Education And Care ◽  
History Of ◽  
Global North ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Education Field

In accordance with the white patriarchal foundations of the early childhood education field of the global north, Chile’s early childhood education has a colonial and androcentric origin which has been left unquestioned. Reviews of Chilean early childhood education omit/ignore other socio-political agendas, such as class, gender, and ethnicity that still shape the current landscape. This article reconstructs the foundations of Chilean early childhood education through a reconceptualized mestiza history of the present. This approach challenges the neutrality of Chilean early childhood education and seeks to reclaim it by examining the underpinning regimes of truth that re-colonize children and women moving within and inhabiting the field. Analyses show how two main strands shape(d) early childhood education and care: social (and currently, multiagency) policies, and curriculum and pedagogy. The relationship between these strands has been recursive and contradictory and overlapping over time. However, their mixture creates an illusion of literal transposition as a syncretic effect, which under close examination exposes its fault lines.

scholarly journals “I love my work but...” The Professionalization of Early Childhood Education

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Boyd
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Early Education ◽  
Professional Status ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Early Education And Care ◽  
Professional Development Training ◽  
Education And Care ◽  
The Relationship

There are two separate but related issues that have challenged advocates, researchers and practitioners in the field of early education and care work for decades : improving the quality of children’s programs and increasing the wages and benefits of the workers. The solution has been framed as a need for professionalizing the workforce – professional development training, higher education and enhanced skills. While seeking professional status is expected to improve the quality of childcare programs and worker compensation, the relationship between quality, compensation and professional development training has not been fully explored. Through in - depth interviews with 32 early childhood educators I explored the relationship between educational qualifications and experience , with teacher pay and condition s of employment. Although the majority saw their work as “valuable and meaningful” they did not intend to remain in early childhood education. They experienced poverty wages, few benefits, high work related expenses and job insecurity. Their narratives highlight a crisis in early childhood education that requires radical change within the profession of early education . To retain the most qualified and motivated early childhood educators , pay and working conditions must be improved. Obtaining professional status and credentials for early education and care workers is not enough . Substantial increases in wages and benefits must be central to this movement; anything less suggests exploitation not professionalization.

Examining discursive formations in early childhood media research: A genealogical analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 225-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison Sterling Henward
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Applied Field ◽  
Intimate Relationship ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Intellectual Traditions ◽  
Education And Care ◽  
Media Research ◽  
The Relationship

The study of popular culture and children has a long and intimate relationship in many fields within the humanities and social sciences, yet in the applied field of Early Childhood Education and Care, the relationship is rather fraught. Employing a Foucauldian genealogical approach, I trace the ways in which intellectual traditions and discourses (i.e. history, politics, and sacrosanct values of European aesthetics and childhood innocence) have shaped contemporary understandings and debates in the field. With attention to Foucault’s concepts of power/knowledge couplet, and discursive archives, my focus in on how these axiomatic “myths” have assembled as “regimes of truth.” I thus argue for the need for the field of Early Childhood Education and Care to engage in and consider more contextualized, nuanced, and empirically oriented studies of young children and their engagement with consumer culture.

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