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.