Starting Childcare Before Three: Narratives of Experience From a Tri-Partite Focus

<p>This thesis explores the event of starting childcare as experienced by five under-three year old children, their mothers and at least one teacher in the childcare centre attended by each child. Narrative accounts of the adults' experiences were gathered through journal records kept by the mothers and the teachers, and during two semi-structured interviews. The children's experiences were recorded through non-participant observation fieldnotes and video-taped records of three events during each orientation visit by the children and their mothers to the childcare centre, and once weekly for the following six weeks. Narratives of experiences were re-constructed from these data using a combination of methods from grounded theory, narrative enquiry and deconstuctivist analysis. The tri-partite focus of this thesis reveals the experience of starting childcare as an emotional one for all participants, not just for children; it argues that the traditional research focus on the emotional significance of this event for children is an incomplete one. Additionally, starting childcare was an experience of induction: through processes of social canalization and guided participation, the mothers and the children were inducted into the ways of the childcare centre by the teachers and the established children in the centre. Deconstuctivist analyses of the adult participants' narrative accounts suggested that both mothers and teachers defined their roles in the children's experience of starting childcare, and their relationships with each other and with the children, against the background of dominant discourses about motherhood and early childhood teaching. For teachers this meant that they expressed their role as subsidiary to that of the mother. The paradox emerged that while teachers saw themselves as less powerful than the mothers in influencing the children's starting childcare experience, the observational data revealed that the teachers' actions determined the way children were 'canalized' into the expected ways of relating to them. Theoretical statements emerged from this study which point to new directions for how the event of starting childcare may be conceptualised in the context of shared care between home adults and early childhood teachers. Implications for enhancing the experience of starting childcare are highlighted.</p>

Starting Childcare Before Three: Narratives of Experience From a Tri-Partite Focus

<p>This thesis explores the event of starting childcare as experienced by five under-three year old children, their mothers and at least one teacher in the childcare centre attended by each child. Narrative accounts of the adults' experiences were gathered through journal records kept by the mothers and the teachers, and during two semi-structured interviews. The children's experiences were recorded through non-participant observation fieldnotes and video-taped records of three events during each orientation visit by the children and their mothers to the childcare centre, and once weekly for the following six weeks. Narratives of experiences were re-constructed from these data using a combination of methods from grounded theory, narrative enquiry and deconstuctivist analysis. The tri-partite focus of this thesis reveals the experience of starting childcare as an emotional one for all participants, not just for children; it argues that the traditional research focus on the emotional significance of this event for children is an incomplete one. Additionally, starting childcare was an experience of induction: through processes of social canalization and guided participation, the mothers and the children were inducted into the ways of the childcare centre by the teachers and the established children in the centre. Deconstuctivist analyses of the adult participants' narrative accounts suggested that both mothers and teachers defined their roles in the children's experience of starting childcare, and their relationships with each other and with the children, against the background of dominant discourses about motherhood and early childhood teaching. For teachers this meant that they expressed their role as subsidiary to that of the mother. The paradox emerged that while teachers saw themselves as less powerful than the mothers in influencing the children's starting childcare experience, the observational data revealed that the teachers' actions determined the way children were 'canalized' into the expected ways of relating to them. Theoretical statements emerged from this study which point to new directions for how the event of starting childcare may be conceptualised in the context of shared care between home adults and early childhood teachers. Implications for enhancing the experience of starting childcare are highlighted.</p>

A Conceptual Framework and Evaluation Tool for Mobile Learning Experiences

There is an identified need in the research literature for the design, implementation, and evaluation of a conceptual framework for creating contextual, interactive mobile learning. This article details how the conceptual framework was implemented and tested in an online learning course for physicians, nurses, and healthcare professionals at medical organizations across Ontario. The conceptual framework and evaluation instruments were revised based on identified best practices and feedback from study participants. This provided a practical, evidence-based tool for informing the effective design of mobile learning. Results indicated that the design of the framework to include context-specific content, guided participation delivery, flexible and intuitive usability, formal online and informal mobile structure, and access to communities of practice all resulted in practical, applicable learning outcomes and a high degree of learner satisfaction.

Intervention Fidelity of a Volunteer-Led Montessori-Based Intervention in a Canadian Long-Term Care Home

ABSTRACT Montessori-based interventions (MBIs) were developed to promote guided participation in meaningful activities by people with dementia patients. In this study, we assessed nursing home volunteers’ fidelity to an MBI, relying primarily on a qualitative descriptive design. We completed a deductive content analysis of eight volunteer interviews using the Conceptual Framework for Intervention Fidelity. We also calculated average volunteer and resident scores on the Visiting Quality Questionnaire (VQQ), which assesses volunteers’ and residents’ perceptions of visits. We found good evidence that volunteers attended scheduled visits, made use of pre-designed activities, and attended to training recommendations. Most reported enjoying the visits (VQQ $ \overline{x} $ = 6.12, standard deviation [SD] = 0.75) and receiving a positive response from residents (VQQ $ \overline{x} $ = 5.46, SD = 0.88). Nevertheless, use of pre-designed activities and response to the MBI was lower for volunteers working with residents who had late-stage dementia. Therefore, overall, fidelity depended on the cognitive status of the resident.

Developmental Participation: The Necessity of Cultural Perspectives in Developmental Psychology

This main aim of this paper is to present some theoretical considerations about the need for a cultural approach in modern developmental psychology. Starting with a critique of the over-universalisation of developmental research in American psychology, the authors present a paradigm of a relational-developmental system, using the concept of embodiment and a cultural approach in psychological research, in which the principal object of analysis is person-in-action as a culturally inclusive alternative for developmental psychology. This approach will be exemplified by research on development through guided participation and the role of shame in moral and social development in Confucian culture.

Guided participation in youth media practices

Youth has to deal with some digital practices and develop media discourses on their own. Our study aims to deepen these concepts from the point of view of the guided participation, understood in this case as a collaborative process of media literacy based on culturally significant activities. Our data comes from a series of workshops that took place at the Telefonica Flagship Store (Madrid, Spain) with teens between eight and 14 years old. The evidence was collected by qualitative research techniques such as observation, conversation and descriptive analysis. The results give us some preliminary ideas for discussion: 1) social media practices enable youth to connect their online and offline activities with their interests; 2) the generation of collaborative learning scenarios based on the interaction between young people becomes a fundamental element of media literacy and 3) user-generated content emerges as an identity and habits depiction in media, especially among young people.

Kōmako Quilters’ informal learning and the collective zone of proximal development: The ‘5x5 quilt’ project

This article discusses the informal learning processes of a quilting community, located in Aotearoa New Zealand, as participants engage in a collaborative textile project. Few studies have investigated everyday quilters’ collective learning processes, even though communal quiltmaking has been undertaken over the centuries. The concept of zone of proximal development (zpd) is extended as a ‘collective zone of proximal development’ where people are doing something together. This ethnographic study views quiltmaking as a sociocultural activity, and emphasizes the situated nature of knowing within a community-based setting. Research methods reveal the explicit and tacit dimensions of the quilters’ meaning making. During the fieldwork, flexibility and reflexivity are required to overcome ethical issues as they arise. The guided participation is revealed through the quilters’ interactions as they participated in their collaborative activity. Learning sequences present episodic details of the way these interactions are constructed and developed. The quilters actively seek to increase opportunities for learning and for sharing skills and knowledge through participation partnerships involving multi-way collaborations.