Russian and Indian Preschool Educators’ Beliefs about Distance Education for Preschoolers

Increasing interest in the digitization of education raises the question of the specifics of the use of digital devices in preschool education and the perception of these new practices by educators. The primary purpose of this study was to examine educators’ beliefs about distance education for preschool children in Russia and India, given their professional education and cultural background. These two countries were chosen to explore how the education system has dealt with emergency remote teaching in countries with social and economic diversity. The study involved 909 preschool educators (623 from Russia and 286 from India). An exploratory factor analysis of educators’ responses to the Educators’ Beliefs about Distance Education for Preschoolers Questionnaire identified three factors. The first factor reflects the degree of positive or negative beliefs about the promotion potential of distance education for preschool children’s development. The second represents educators’ beliefs about the effectiveness of distance education depending on different teacher, child, and environmental conditions. The third is manifested in the belief among educators that distance education is ineffective in preschool education. The findings suggest that the years of professional education in early childhood pedagogy impacts educators’ beliefs about distance education for preschool children. Regardless of the number of years of education training, educators in India were more likely to believe in the high promotion potential of distance education in early childhood.

A New Debate About Children and Childhood. Could it Make a Difference to Early Childhood Pedagogy and Policy?

<p>The study analyses constructions of childhood within early childhood education pedagogy and policy in New Zealand. Constructions are evaluated against criteria for an education based on a concept of the "child as citizen" and children's rights. Qualitative research methods were used. Constructions of childhood in pedagogy were examined through analysis of pedagogical documentation and discussions of teachers who met together over a year within a teachers' network. The teachers' aims were to base their practice on notions of the "child as citizen" and extend their thinking and practice from this basis. Constructions of childhood in policy were studied within two arenas: focus groups of government officials and representatives of early childhood organisations who met to discuss key issues in early childhood education policy; and early childhood education policy documents and commentary produced during the period 2000-2007. The analytic approach enabled an evaluation to be made of how children were represented within policy and practice, and the implications of constructions of childhood which would lead to democratic citizenship. Constructions of childhood were found to be dominant influences on thinking about early childhood pedagogy and policy, and were associated with views about the purposes and breadth of early childhood education; the roles of teachers, children, families, community and the government; and favoured pedagogical and policy approaches. I argued that organisational cultures exert a pervasive influence on participants' assumptions and values. Three main areas where policy could be developed to better support democratic citizenship were identified. First, citizenry rights should be established as a predominant goal for policy as it is for pedagogy. Where policy and pedagogical goals are integrated, both can work together to reinforce each other. One contention is that the process of making meaning of beliefs and critiquing them within collective forums can enable participants to contemplate what the child as citizen means conceptually and in practice and policy, and in this way incorporate the beliefs into the ways children are treated in these domains. Secondly, I argued for inquiry into the nature of early childhood education provision that we want in New Zealand society and within communities. Institutional thinking can raise barriers to envisaging new forms of provision that cater well for all children, and contribute to a wide range of outcomes, including dispositions for participating in a democratic society, support for families, social cohesiveness and community building. A third challenge is for policy frameworks to support teaching and learning. Action research approaches with support from a professional development adviser were shown to enable teachers to explore the value base of their pedagogy and experiment with change. Although such approaches are being supported by some Ministry of Education initiatives in New Zealand, working conditions are not conducive to these approaches in many early childhood settings. I have argued that structures are needed to support debate in pedagogy and policy and enable all parties, including parents, to participate in it. A new debate could enable different voices to be heard and new possibilities constructed for early childhood services as sites for building a democratic society.</p>

A New Debate About Children and Childhood. Could it Make a Difference to Early Childhood Pedagogy and Policy?

<p>The study analyses constructions of childhood within early childhood education pedagogy and policy in New Zealand. Constructions are evaluated against criteria for an education based on a concept of the "child as citizen" and children's rights. Qualitative research methods were used. Constructions of childhood in pedagogy were examined through analysis of pedagogical documentation and discussions of teachers who met together over a year within a teachers' network. The teachers' aims were to base their practice on notions of the "child as citizen" and extend their thinking and practice from this basis. Constructions of childhood in policy were studied within two arenas: focus groups of government officials and representatives of early childhood organisations who met to discuss key issues in early childhood education policy; and early childhood education policy documents and commentary produced during the period 2000-2007. The analytic approach enabled an evaluation to be made of how children were represented within policy and practice, and the implications of constructions of childhood which would lead to democratic citizenship. Constructions of childhood were found to be dominant influences on thinking about early childhood pedagogy and policy, and were associated with views about the purposes and breadth of early childhood education; the roles of teachers, children, families, community and the government; and favoured pedagogical and policy approaches. I argued that organisational cultures exert a pervasive influence on participants' assumptions and values. Three main areas where policy could be developed to better support democratic citizenship were identified. First, citizenry rights should be established as a predominant goal for policy as it is for pedagogy. Where policy and pedagogical goals are integrated, both can work together to reinforce each other. One contention is that the process of making meaning of beliefs and critiquing them within collective forums can enable participants to contemplate what the child as citizen means conceptually and in practice and policy, and in this way incorporate the beliefs into the ways children are treated in these domains. Secondly, I argued for inquiry into the nature of early childhood education provision that we want in New Zealand society and within communities. Institutional thinking can raise barriers to envisaging new forms of provision that cater well for all children, and contribute to a wide range of outcomes, including dispositions for participating in a democratic society, support for families, social cohesiveness and community building. A third challenge is for policy frameworks to support teaching and learning. Action research approaches with support from a professional development adviser were shown to enable teachers to explore the value base of their pedagogy and experiment with change. Although such approaches are being supported by some Ministry of Education initiatives in New Zealand, working conditions are not conducive to these approaches in many early childhood settings. I have argued that structures are needed to support debate in pedagogy and policy and enable all parties, including parents, to participate in it. A new debate could enable different voices to be heard and new possibilities constructed for early childhood services as sites for building a democratic society.</p>

Baśniowe przestrzenie działania z perspektywy przyszłych nauczycieli

The aim of the article is to present meanings associated with fairy tale places by teacher candidates. The research data came from interviews with 57 early childhood pedagogy students, analysed through a qualitative method. The competences of candidates for teachers in perceiving the symbolism of places, wandering, world layout, reveal not only the level of cultural and literary knowledge (because they are a “showcase” of previous school experiences of fairy-tale themed lessons), but also indicate their future strategies for designing children’s activity based on fairy tales. These strategies may turn out to be so durable and resistant to change that they might survive university literary education and remain the starting point for students’ teaching practice. The research shows that the fairy tale can remain in them as the starting point for fun or a “background” for science, mathematics and language.

Early Childhood Pedagogy: Veronica Pacini- Ketchabaw Interviews Peter Moss

This conversation between Peter Moss and Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw addresses a wide range of subjects, from Moss’s early writings on the ethical and political struggles of early childhood education to the challenging suggestions of pedagogical experimentation.

Silenced Motherhood(s): Forbidden Motherings in the Early Childhood Classroom

What is the role of mothering in the early childhood classroom? Given the focus of the field of “professionalization” and “scientific” practices, how might the role of maternal nurturance be woven into our understandings of pedagogies? This paper addresses the disempowerment experienced by an early childhood practitioner when maternal subjectivities and practices are framed as oppositional to the “professionalization” of the field. Through narrative research as a teacher-scholar, I explore my own experiences around my role as “not-mother” in the classroom, looking critically at the interwovenness of mothering and teaching in classroom relationships and communities. Through this narrative examination, I explore the role of maternal relationships in early childhood, in conversation with my practices of mothering as the teacher-not-mother. Through narrative inquiry and analysis, I attempt to make visible the forbidden subjectivities of the not-mother, and her centrality to meaningful early childhood pedagogy.

Making a bricolage: An immanent process of experimentation

This article draws on a new materialist paradigm to explore bricolaging data from an early childhood research project through an immanent ethical lens. This lens enables the researcher to stretch towards non-hierarchical relationships in between subjects and objects, thinking and doing. A bricoleur explores and builds different knowledge-production pathways, allowing experimentation with a wide range of methods and theoretical perspectives. The argument presented here is that bricolaging data could be a non-hierarchical tool through which the researcher considers materiality and artefacts as intra-active participators. Empirical matter – such as videos, photographs, dialogue transcripts, scribblings, sounds, vibrations, bodies and recycled materials – becomes visible through several reviews and rereadings. Here, the bricoleur explores how various data can be read by bricolaging it together, resulting in several narratives that may disrupt and challenge dominant discourses and present alternative perspectives in early childhood pedagogy.