International Early Childhood Research Topics of Interest

The European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA), is in part made up of official “Special Interest Groups” (SIG’s).  SIGs have at least two convenors (of different nationalities), who are responsible for facilitating the work of the SIG.  There currently are 11 active SIG’s in the EECERA.  Just a brief perusal of the SIG titles gives an overview of the various interests and areas of research being conducted within this group.

• Birth to Three
• Equity and Respect for Diversity
• Gender Balance
• Leadership and Integration
• Leadership Mentoring for Early Years Services
• Learning and Participation
• Mathematics Birth to Eight Years
• Outdoor Play and Learning
• Professionalism in Early Childhood Education and Care
• Transitions
• Young Children's Perspectives
• Working With Parents and Families

These groups bring together contributors and researchers from all over the world to discuss and contribute to the understanding of each topic, and the sub-topics within each topic.  Here are some of the most read topics I found published in the EECERA Journal:

Social/Emotional Development:

Doing friendship during the second year of life in a Swedish preschool

A number of studies within early childhood education and care indicate the importance of social competence. This article focuses on how friendship is created among very young children in Swedish preschools. The study was carried out within a toddler unit with 15 children. Six 1-year-old children, three girls and three boys, were observed during nine months. The ethnographic method follows a phenomenological tradition with participatory observations, including field notes, photos and video recordings. The findings show how young toddlers create friendships: 1-year-olds monitor and pay attention to individual peers, displaying intentionality and agency by spontaneously greeting their peers, by offering play invitations, and by helping peers. Mutual awareness, joint attention, shared smiles, coordinated locomotion, as well as other types of synchronized actions are parts of non-verbal elements in emerging friendship. One pedagogical implication of this study is to take young children's friendship into account when putting together preschool groups (Engdahi, 2012)

Multilingualism:

Playing and learning in another language: ensuring good quality early years education in a language revitalisation programme

Offering Gaelic medium preschool provision poses particular challenges as most children only encounter Gaelic in the playroom and live in a context heavily dominated by English. Nevertheless, expanding provision for early years education in Gaelic is an important part of ambitious plans to revitalise the language. In this paper we explore the challenges experienced by adults and children as they strive to provide good quality preschool education through the medium of Gaelic. Drawing on evidence from a review of Gaelic medium preschool education, we consider the difficulties experienced in developing a Gaelic-only immersion playroom, the need for specific resources and the perceived training needs of practitioners. We look at the issues which arise from the largely English language home learning environment and the specific pedagogical challenges experienced when supporting language learning and access to the national curriculum. Our analysis will be relevant to others working in similar cultural–linguistic and political contexts across Europe (Stephen, McPake, & McLeod, 2012)

Play

Make‐believe play versus academic skills: a Vygotskian approach to today’s dilemma of early childhood education

The article focuses on the Vygotskian approach to high quality early childhood education in light of the challenges facing early childhood educators in Russia and in the West. One of these challenges is the constant pressure to start teaching academic skills at a progressively younger age at the expense of traditional early childhood activities. Vygotskian approach suggests that young children can master necessary prerequisites of academic skills through engagement in mature make‐believe play. The article emphasizes the need for the adult scaffolding of play in the current social context and discusses the strategies for such scaffolding (Bodrova, 2008)

The influence of play context and adult attitudes on young children's physical risk‐taking during outdoor play

Many children naturally seek challenging physically active play which may involve injury-risk. Prior studies have attempted to describe the characteristics of risky play but to date none have considered factors that impact on opportunities for risky play or the likely resultant outcomes. Using semi- structured interviews and naturalistic observations, this study aimed to investigate adult attitudes towards risk-taking and whether children’s experiences of risky play differ according to the contexts in which the play takes place. Although the children’s mothers and Early Childhood practitioners believed risky play was an important aspect of learning and development and encouraged this type of play, observations of children’s play at a local playground and their Early Childhood centre revealed that these contexts provided limited opportunities for risky play. Regulatory factors and requirements for playground safety were identified as having a detrimental impact on the quality of play in these settings creating tension between adult beliefs about the benefits of risky play and its provision (Little, Wyver, & Gibson, 2011)

Gaining the Perspectives of Children

Listening to young citizens: the struggle to make real a participatory paradigm in research with young children

Since the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was ratified in 1991, children's right to have a voice, and to have their opinions heard, has led many providers and practitioners in the field of early years to seek ways to involve children's perspectives in the evaluation and development of practice. Those who value democracy understand that encouraging young children to actively participate has long term implications for participatory citizenship. Researchers in early childhood have also been sensitised to the challenge of inclusive research, in which our youngest children are viewed as active subjects, rather than objects, in a research process that is set in the context of a democratic encounter. The Centre for Research in Early Childhood in Birmingham, England has a strong ethical commitment to including the voices of children as an integral part of all its research and development work. We operate through an ethos of empowerment of all participants, and aim for participatory research practice which has at its heart an active involvement in promoting the rights of children as citizens with voice and power.

This paper will trace a brief history of the children's participatory position in England and explore the struggles and challenges we, as researchers, have faced in making our personal commitment to children's participation a reality. It will draw upon the work of a series of research and development projects we have undertaken over the last fifteen years in which we tried to work alongside children to explore and document their realities of life in early childhood settings. These projects include the Effective Early Learning (EEL) Programme, the Accounting Early for Life Long Learning (AcE) Programme, the Children Crossing Borders Project (Bertram and Pascal 2007) and the Opening Windows (OW) Programme. Through the work of these projects, and with an especial focus on the Children Crossing Borders research, which was the precursor to the OW programme, we explain how we have attempted to provide space for multiple voices in the research process. We share our learning about how better to support and listen to the voices of young children, who are the most often silenced in the production of knowledge and understandings about their lives. From this experience, methodological and epistemological lessons for researchers and practitioners will be identified and further explored (Pascal, & Bertram, 2009)

Given the topic of discussion for this week:  Observing and Interviewing Children, I found the information above regarding the ways in which we listen and communicate with children interesting.  Listening and communicating with children in a way that allows them to actually influence their environments is critical for future development.   In the abstract above, an important point is made, “Those who value democracy understand that encouraging young children to actively participate has long term implications for participatory citizenship” (Pascal, & Bertram, 2009) 

Here I go up on the soapbox… please bear with me.  So many phrases adults use to describe children today shows an unfortunate lack of confidence in the capabilities of children.  Here are some examples I often hear from parents and educators:

·      Well you know.  They are just kids.  They don’t know what they want.

·      Kids cannot make their own decisions.

·      You have to let kids know, who’s the boss.

·      Kids are fickle

·      Don’t ask a child his/her opinion or you’ll never get anywhere

·      Kids should be seen not heard

·      What would he know?  He’s just a kid.

·      Give him candy.  That will make him quiet.

·      If you want it to get done, don’t ask the kids to do it.  Do it yourself.

·      Kids don’t know if they’re coming or going.

·      Kids don’t understand most of what’s going on around them.

·      Never solicit help from a child.

I feel strongly that these phrases need to be dropped from the way in which we describe children.  The use of these phrases shows a poor understanding of childhood, and what it can be.  These phrases are also indicative of the low expectations, and in some cases regard we have for young children.

References;

Bodrova, E. (2008). Make‐believe play versus academic skills: a Vygotskian approach to today’s dilemma of early childhood education - European Early Childhood Education Research Journal - Volume 16, Issue 3. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 16(3), 357–369.

Engdahi, I. (2012). Doing friendship during the second year of life in a Swedish preschool. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 20(1), 83–98.

Little, H., Wyver, S., & Gibson, F. (2011). The influence of play context and adult attitudes on young children’s physical risk‐taking during outdoor play. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 19(1), 113–131.

Pascal, C., & Bertram, T. (2009). Listening to young citizens: The struggle to make real a participatory paradigm in research with young children. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 17(2), 249–262.

Stephen, C., McPake, J., & McLeod, W. (2012). Playing and learning in another language: ensuring good quality early years education in a language revitalisation programme. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 20(1), 21–33.

Extra: Information Worth Sharing

For my colleagues: The following information was also posted in 6163/Week 3 Discussion, but I thought it should be on my blog as well.  The information below is specifically about early childhood research... the TIME article highlighted below as well as the W. Steven Barnett paper are particularly informative.

"Debunking the Idea that Kindergartens Equate Crime

A kerfuffle arose when a New Hampshire state representative remarked that kindergarten results in criminal activity after his research found a link between crime rates and access to kindergarten in communities throughout the state. But as any good social science student knows, correlation does not equal causation. Neuroscience journalist Maia Szalavitz worked on setting the record straight in aTime article detailing some rigorous studies of early education’s effects and explaining some research basics, such as the aforementioned axiom about correlation. Back in 2007, NIEER Director W. Steven Barnett wrote a paper providing insights on how to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of five types of research commonly used to study early childhood education."

Reference:

NIEER Online News <nieer_online_news@email.rutgers.edu>

How Research Can Benefit Children and Families

     Through out the Early Childhood Studies Masters program, I have been fascinated by studies related to the early development of the human brain.  We have learned much over the last 10 - 20 years about the brain, and specifically about the physical and psychological affects neglect can have on the developing brain, and how that affects the nature and functionality of a person for life.  Researchers gained critical information about brain development from an atrocious situation that developed in Romania under the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu (1965-1989).  During Ceausescu's dictatorship, he came to believe that Romania could become a world power, if the "worker" population of Romania was significantly increased.  Therefore he encouraged couples to have not less than 4 children.  Eventually Ceausescu banded all forms of birth control and abortion.  Romania's population exploded, and many couples could not afford to raise the number of children they had.  Ceausescu then "assured" parents that any children they had and felt they could not care for, could be left at state run orphanages, and thus be cared for by the state.  Of course the orphanages quickly became over crowded and were understaffed.  Although children were fed and housed, they were contained in cribs for most of their young lives, with little or no socialization with adults and each other.  In 1989 Communism fell, and with it Ceausescu was executed.  Not until 1989, did the world learn of the Romanian orphanages.  Families from primarily the U.K. and the U.S. began adopting children from the Romanian orphanages.  As the many social and physical anomalies common to these children became apparent, researchers went to Romania to observe and study the situation.  Furthermore, many researchers studied children that were adopted into Western European, and North American families.  Through these research studies, we have learned that early social deprivation, often reeks havoc on the human brain's ability to develop and function appropriately, affecting all faculties necessary for life.  The following are excerpts from a study I thought to be fascinating.  It seems logical, that professionals working in the field of special education, and with children who have experienced neglect or abusive situations should know and understand these studies.  For this particular study referenced below, I highly recommend reading of the entire study.  From these unfortunate and appalling conditions in Romania, research was conducted that has brought better understanding to the significant realities associated with early brain development.

Social policies and severe economic problems in Romania in the 1980s resulted in early global deprivation for a large number of children. Over 65,000 children were placed in orphanages during this period, 85% of whom were placed within the first month of life (Ames and Carter, 1992; O’Connor and Rutter, 2000). Child–caregiver ratios were 10:1 for in- fants and 20:1 for children over 3 years of age (McMul- lan and Fisher, 1992), and infants spent up to 20 h per day in their cribs unattended (Ames and Carter, 1992). Studies of children following removal from the orphanages and adoption by families in the United Kingdom and North America revealed the presence of cognitive, social, and physical deficits (Ames, 1997; Rutter, 1998). At the time of adoption, the majority of the children showed cognitive performance in the mental retardation range based upon parent report on the Denver scale (Rutter, 1998). Longitudinal studies have demon- strated that these children showed considerable recovery by age 4 years (Ames, 1997; Rutter, 1998), but that deficits remaining at 4 years were also present at 6 years of age (O’Connor and Rutter, 2000) (Chugani, et al., 2001).

The major finding in the present study is that early global deprivation in the Romanian orphans is associ- ated with dysfunction in a number of brain regions, including orbital frontal cortex, prefrontal infralimbic cortex, lateral temporal cortex, medial temporal struc- tures, and brain stem. We selected a rigorous analysis approach using SPM to compare the pattern of glucose metabolism in Romanian orphans to that of normal adults, followed by an independent ROI approach and, finally, a second SPM analysis in which the pattern of glucose metabolism of the Romanian orphans was compared to that of the “normal” hemisphere of age- matched children with focal epilepsy. The same brain regions emerged as significantly different between Romanian orphans and controls across all three independent analyses (Chugani, et al., 2001).

The Romanian orphans in the present study showed evidence of bilateral dysfunction (as indicated by decreased glucose metabolism) of medial temporal structures including the amygdala and hippocampus, as well as bilateral dysfunction of the inferior temporal cortex. Characteristics of behavioral abnormalities at the time of adoption, including absence of crying, stereotyped behaviors such as rocking and head-banging, and social difficulties, may be related to bilateral dysfunction in these brain regions during early brain development (Chugani, et al., 2001).

In summary, children exposed to early social deprivation show longterm cognitive and behavioral deficits, associated with dysfunction (indicated by decreased glucose utilization) in a group of limbic brain regions known to be activated by stress and damaged by prolonged stress. We suggest that chronic stress endured in the Romanian orphanages during infancy in these children resulted in altered development of these limbic structures and that altered functional connections in these circuits may represent the mechanism underlying persistent behavioral disturbances in the Romanian orphans (Chugani, et al., 2001)

References:

Chugani, H. T., Behen, M. E., Muzik, O., Juhasz, C., Nagy, F., & Chugani, D. C. (2001). Local brain functional activity following early deprivation:  A study of postinstitutionalized Romanian orphans. NeuroImage, 14, 1290–1301. doi:10.1006/nimg.2001.0917

 

        

Research Simulation: Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg?

How best do children acquire literacy?  The ability to decode the writing of others in order to access, and interpret the thoughts of others: To read.  The topic of my research project in its broadest form is to study the effect of learning to write, before learning to read.  The idea of learning to write in order to beget reading is not new.  Lev Vygotsky(Berger, K. S., 2009), Maria Montessori (Lillard, A. 2005) (Lillard, P. P., 1972) and John Henry Martin (Parshall, 1987) (Hendrix, 1988)  also understood the vast benefits of learning to write before learning to read.  Montessori and Martin took the idea of writing before reading and designed methodologies to support it.  In the Montessori methodology, the Practical Life, and Sensorial curriculums support the Montessori language curriculum, which emphasizes writing before reading, in the multi-age (3 – 6 years) classroom.  John Henry Martin, in part, recognizing the validity of Montessori’s work also designed a reading program based upon learning to write, before learning to read.  In the early 1980’s Martin presented his idea to IBM in Los Angeles, and together they created a product, using in part computer based phonics tutorials, known as “Writing to Read”.  The “Writing to Read” program was widely implemented in Los Angeles public and parochial schools.  As a first grade teacher in Los Angeles at the time, I had the good fortune of implementing the program with my first grade class.  Later as a Montessori teacher, I recognized the Montessori method of writing before reading as similar to the Martin methodology I had implemented before.  After doing a bit of research, I discovered that Martin indeed did study and implement Montessori ideas in his design of the Writing to Read program.  When implemented correctly, both methodologies demonstrate a great amount of respect for children as highly motivated and independent thinkers, and both methods capitalize on the natural tendencies children have to want to learn and communicate.  In both methods, letters are referred to by their corresponding phonemes rather than the conventional name of the letter.  For example the letter “C” is referred to by its phonetic sound “’c’ like c-at” rather than “cee”.  With experience and knowledge regarding both methods I began to blend the two in my Montessori classroom.  Drawing upon certain aspects of Martin’s methodology and Montessori’s methodology, as well as utilizing aspects of a methodology designed by the North American Montessori Center (North American Montessori Center, n.d.)- which included the use of materials designed by the Primary Phonics (Makar, 1976) program, I put it all together and rounded it out with a song I composed for the phonetic sounds of the alphabet.  My experience implementing the Writing to Read Program in Los Angeles was with a population of poor immigrant English language learners from Central America and Mexico ages 5 – 7 years.  My experience implementing the Montessori method is with children from a variety of cultures, speaking a variety of languages at home, and ages 3 - 6 years.  Although the sample of children with whom I’ve had the opportunity to work is small, their multicultural and multilingual backgrounds along with their special needs were vast.  Because the writing and reading outcomes of the children tended to be high, my curiosity has been sparked in wondering if this methodology could stand up to the rigors of scientific testing.  Refining this topic into testable research studies, I think, will first require a highly descriptive list of all the techniques I would use in designing the environment, training teachers and implementing the method.  The completed list of techniques for implementation would then become the list and sub-lists of variables to be tested.  A full study regarding the combination of methodologies I have implemented, I suspect might be massive, and daunting to say the least.  Hence it is important to further break the topic down into manageable parts for accurate testing.  

References:

Angeline Lillard. (2005). Montessori:  The Science Behind the Genius. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Berger, K. S. (2009). Piaget and Vygotsky. The Developing Person Through Childhood (5th ed., pp. 249–260). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.

Hendrix, K. (1988, October 9). The wizard of reading:  John Henry Martin brought computers to the fight against illiteracy and is trasforming the way kids learn to read. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 27, 2012, from http://articles.latimes.com/1988-10-09/news/vw-5223_1_john-henry-martin

Makar, B. (1976). Primary Phonics:  Workbooks and Phonetic Story books for Kindergarten Through Grade Four. Cambridge, MA: Educators Publishing Service. Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books/about/Primary_Phonics_Mac_and_Tab.html?id=gp81pqJrkGcC

North American Montessori Center. (n.d.). Montessori training, Montessori teaching philosophy. North American Montessori Center. Retrieved July 1, 2012, from http://www.montessoritraining.net/

Parshall, G. (1987). IBM’s Writing to Read program:  One teacher’s experience. Language Arts Journal of Michigan, 3(2), 38–51.

Paula Polk Lillard. (1972). Montessori:  A Modern Approach. New York, NY: Schocken Inc.