Challenges in Early Years and Primary Education focuses on the teaching and learning of children in early years and primary school settings and creates awareness and a deeper understanding of current and critical education issues such as wellbeing, global education, online teaching, and teaching and learning in a multicultural society. This book encourages the development of the underpinning knowledge and understanding of teaching and learning, recognising good mental health and the solid principles of working with children, families and other professionals. Through discussions on a range of interrelated factors that contribute to children's development, and learning and progressive participation, expert contributors explore ways to respond to and ameliorate the effects of the pandemic and other possible challenges that education professionals and children might face in the future. Challenges in Early Years and Primary Education is ideal reading for educational practitioners including teachers and anyone working in aligned educational settings, as well as students in the field of early years and primary education.

Challenges in Early Years and Primary Education focuses on the teaching and learning of children in early years and primary school settings and creates awareness and a deeper understanding of current and critical education issues such as wellbeing, global education, online teaching, and teaching and learning in a multicultural society. This book encourages the development of the underpinning knowledge and understanding of teaching and learning, recognising good mental health and the solid principles of working with children, families and other professionals. Through discussions on a range of interrelated factors that contribute to children's development, and learning and progressive participation, expert contributors explore ways to respond to and ameliorate the effects of the pandemic and other possible challenges that education professionals and children might face in the future. Challenges in Early Years and Primary Education is ideal reading for educational practitioners including teachers and anyone working in aligned educational settings, as well as students in the field of early years and primary education.

Using Video Games to Level Up Collaboration for Students provides a research-informed, systematic approach for using cooperative multiplayer video games as tools for teaching collaborative social skills and building social connections. Video games have become an ingrained part of our culture, and many teachers, school leaders and allied health professionals are exploring ways to harness digital games-based learning in their schools and settings. At the same time, collaborative skills and social inclusion have never been more important for our children and young adults. Taking a practical approach to supporting a range of learners, this book provides a three-stage system that guides professionals with all levels of gaming experience through skill instruction, supported play and guided reflection. A range of scaffolds and resources support the implementation of this program in primary and secondary classrooms and private clinics. Complementing this intervention design are a set of principles of game design that assist in the selection of games for use with this program, which assists with the selection of existing games or the design of future games for use with this program. Whether you are a novice or an experienced gamer, Level Up Collaboration provides educators with an innovative approach to ensuring that children and young adults can develop the collaborative social skills essential for thriving in their communities. By using an area of interest and strength for many individuals experiencing challenges with developing friendships and collaborative social skills, this intervention program will help your school or setting to level up social outcomes for all participants.

Children's learning and understanding of science during their pre-school years has been a neglected topic in the education literature-something this volume aims to redress. Paradigmatic notions of science education, with their focus on biologically governed development and age-specific accession to scientific concepts, have perpetuated this state of affairs. This book offers a very different perspective, however. It has its roots in the work of cultural-historical activity theorists, who, since Vygotsky, have assumed that any higher cognitive function existed in and as a social relation first. Accepting this precept removes any lower limit we may deem appropriate on children's cognitive engagement with science-related concepts.

The authors describe and analyze the ways in which children aged from one to five grapple with scientific concepts, and also suggest ways in which pre-service and in-service teachers can be prepared to teach in ways that support children's development in cultural and historical contexts. In doing so, the book affirms the value of cultural-historical activity theory as an appropriate framework for analyzing preschool children's participation in science learning experiences, and shows that that the theory provides an appropriate framework for understanding learning, as well as for planning and conducting training for pre-school teachers.

Helping Every Child to Thrive in the Early Years shows how a personalised and relationship-based approach to education and care can help overcome the 'disadvantage gap' in the early years. It examines the challenges that children from disadvantaged backgrounds face and looks at what settings and practitioners can do to enable every child to succeed. Drawing on the latest research and using the insight gained from many years of working in early education the book considers the impact that disadvantage can have on children's development and argues that building strong relationships with children and families is key to closing the gap. Chapters cover: The different kinds and effects of disadvantage The importance of having a clear vision and shared values The culture of early years and how it has shaped practice Developing strong parent partnerships Supporting children with additional needs Smooth transitions Full of practical advice and supporting anecdotes and case studies, this is essential reading for early years practitioners, setting managers and teachers working with children in Reception and KS1.

* Closes the gap in literation on the role that SEL plays in mitigating and reducing school violence * Activities for elementary and secondary school counselors can be comprehensive counseling programs worldwide to create more peaceful, healthy, and responsive schools * Emphasizes importance of school-based professionals' role in creating school climates that are culturally responsive, student-centered, inclusive, and help to promote success of all students

* Closes the gap in literation on the role that SEL plays in mitigating and reducing school violence * Activities for elementary and secondary school counselors can be comprehensive counseling programs worldwide to create more peaceful, healthy, and responsive schools * Emphasizes importance of school-based professionals' role in creating school climates that are culturally responsive, student-centered, inclusive, and help to promote success of all students

Early Childhood Education and Care in a Global Pandemic is a book that highlights how the international early childhood education and care sector responded to the global COVID-19 pandemic. It shows the resiliency of the sector around the world as it grappled with a rapidly changing environment of uncertainty and complexity. Drawing on a diverse range of early childhood education and care contexts, the book captures real-life examples of how COVID-19 impacted children, educators and teachers, and families. Chapters present cases of the particular challenges that COVID-19 presented in a wide range of countries and then how they responded to these challenges - challenges that tested the resilience of children, educators and teachers, and families. By forward anchoring, each chapter examines the opportunities that arose from these challenges and how new local knowledge was produced as new ways were found to support children, educators and teachers, and families during this time. This book offers early childhood education and care a timely resource on lessons learnt from a once-in-a-lifetime event. It offers the sector a way forward to commit to developing new ways of thinking and working that stem from the lessons learnt during the COVID-19 pandemic.

What is the difference between risk and danger ? What can children learn from taking risks? How can you provide key experiences for children and ensure their safety outdoors?

Young children will naturally seek out challenges and take risks and this is crucial to their overall development. This book clearly explains why children should be given the freedom to take risks and provides practical guidance on how to offer stimulating and challenging outdoor experiences that will extend all areas of children s learning.

Including examples of activities for all weather conditions across all areas of learning, the book covers:

• Health, wellbeing and keeping safe
• Risk assessment
• Supporting individual children with different needs
• Creativity and sustained shared thinking
• Options with limited outdoor space
• Working with parents and addressing concerns
• Observation, planning and assessment

This book is essential reading for practitioners and students that wish to provide rich experiences for children that will enable them to become confident and adventurous learners.

Being the director of an early childhood education program not only includes knowing about child development and developmentally appropriate curriculum, but it also requires a director to supervise staff, manage the facility, create budgets, and implement policies to manage a business. Sticky Situations is a collection of case studies to help early childhood educators walk through management scenarios and brainstorm the best way to solve typical childcare program problems. Each case study addresses a situation that a director may encounter in an early childhood program. The case study also includes reminders about best practices for the field of early childhood education, one possible method for addressing the situation, and discussion questions to evaluate the way that the situation was resolved. This is a fabulous tool for current program directors or those in training programs for early childhood management.

Exploring Materiality in Childhood: Body, Relations and Space explores the multiple ways that childhood and materiality are intertwined and assembled. Bringing together a diverse range of authors, this topical book makes a scholarly contribution to our understanding of the entanglements of materiality and childhoods in international contexts. Chapters explore how various environments and material resources, including technologies and consumer goods, affect children's lives. The book caters to a diverse range of theories, in sociomaterialist, posthumanist, post-anthropocentric and more-than-human research, critically exploring the boundaries of these theoretical approaches with diverse empirical cases. These wide ranges of perspectives develop alternatives to human-centred approaches in understanding children and childhoods. With its diverse theoretical and methodological choices, the book also serves as a versatile example for how to conduct research with children and on childhood. This book will be of great interest for academics, researchers, and postgraduate students in childhood studies, early childhood education, social sciences, cultural sciences and sociology.

This innovative and user-friendly book uses a design thinking approach to examine transformative learning and liminality in physical education. Covering theory and practice, it introduces the important idea of 'threshold concepts' for physical education, helping physical educators to introduce those concepts into curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. The book invites us to reflect on what is learned in, through and about physical education - to identify its core threshold concepts. Once identified, the book explains how the learning of threshold concepts can be planned using principles of pedagogical translation for all four learning domains (cognitive, psychomotor, affective and social). The book is arranged into three key sections which walk the reader through the underpinning concepts, use movement case studies to explore and generate threshold concepts in physical education using design thinking approach and, finally, provide a guiding Praxis Matrix for PE Threshold Concepts that can be used for physical educators across a range of school and physical activity learning contexts. Outlining fundamental theory and useful, practical teaching and coaching advice, this book is invaluable reading for all PE teacher educators, coach educators, and any advanced student, coach or teacher looking to enrich their knowledge and professional practice.

Understanding the place of religion in Early Childhood Education and Care is of critical importance for the development of cultural literacy and plays a key role in societal coherence and inclusion. This international handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the place of religion in the societal educational arenas of the very youngest children across the globe. Drawing together contributions from leading international experts across disciplinary backgrounds, it offers a critical view of how to approach the complexities around the place of religion in Early Childhood Education and Care. Through its four parts, the book examines the theoretical, methodological, policy and practice perspectives and explores the complex intersections of transmission of "cultural heritage" and "national values" with the diverse, changing societal contexts. Each chapter contributes to an increased understanding of how the place of religion in Early Childhood Education and Care can be understood across continents, countries and educational systems. The Routledge International Handbook of the Place of Religion in Early Childhood Education and Care is an essential resource for academics, researchers, students and practitioners working in Early Childhood Education, Sociology of Childhood, Religious Education and other related fields

-Offers an interdisciplinary, three-lesson module using project- and problem-based learning to help kindergarten students investigate and reduce human impact on the environment, designed to infuse real-world learning into K-12 classrooms. -Written and developed for kindergarten teachers, the book offers lesson plans guiding students to investigate various types of pollution, participate in a classroom recycling program, and share their scientific findings in a publication. -Anchored in the Next Generation Science Standards, the Common Core State Standards, and the Framework for 21st Century Learning, which can be used in full or in part to meet the needs of districts, schools and teachers charting a course toward an integrated STEM approach.

Helping Every Child to Thrive in the Early Years shows how a personalised and relationship-based approach to education and care can help overcome the 'disadvantage gap' in the early years. It examines the challenges that children from disadvantaged backgrounds face and looks at what settings and practitioners can do to enable every child to succeed. Drawing on the latest research and using the insight gained from many years of working in early education the book considers the impact that disadvantage can have on children's development and argues that building strong relationships with children and families is key to closing the gap. Chapters cover: The different kinds and effects of disadvantage The importance of having a clear vision and shared values The culture of early years and how it has shaped practice Developing strong parent partnerships Supporting children with additional needs Smooth transitions Full of practical advice and supporting anecdotes and case studies, this is essential reading for early years practitioners, setting managers and teachers working with children in Reception and KS1.

This book is the outcome of a joint collaboration between East China Normal University and the University of Luxembourg, initiated by the Center of Ideas for the Basic Education of the Future (IBEF), and focuses on kindergartens in China from a cultural psychology perspective. By coupling young scholars from diverse cultural backgrounds as research tandems, this book uses an innovative methodological method to reveal a deeply immersing research perspective of the often complicated issues in the Chinese social reality, where long historical tradition and strong motivation for a "modernized" future are fused together and continuously evolve itself into a vibrant and intricate landscape. Meanings and values consciously or unconsciously promoted and conducted in the kindergarten are semiotic devices and they mediate children's and educator's daily behaviours and activities, which are constantly navigating among different social institutions and crossing the border of kindergarten. The book discusses the process of children's socialization in the kindergarten from different angles such as cultural objects, moral education, conflict negotiation, children's drawing analysis and the role of Lego in numeracy development. It also provides an overview of basic educational needs in Chinese kindergartens as well as three commentaries to provide background information and to add a reflective angle for the readers. By reading the book, readers will hopefully go through a constantly transforming process between familiarizing and de-familiarizing along with the research tandem and develop their own understanding of the complex landscape of the Chinese kindergarten and its children as developing subjects constantly living and transcending the context.

When the first edition of this seminal work appeared in 1990, the sociology of childhood was only just beginning to emerge as a distinct sub-discipline. Drawing together strands of existing sociological writing about childhood and shaping them into a new paradigm, the original edition of this Routledge Classic offered a potent blend of ideas that informed, even inspired, many empirical studies of children s lives because it provided a unique lens through which to think about childhood. Featuring a collection of articles which summarised the developments in the study of childhood across the social sciences, including history, psychology, sociology, anthropology, feminist and developmental studies, scholars and professionals from developed and developing countries world-wide shared their knowledge of having worked and of working with children.

Now with a new introduction from the editors to contextualise it into the 21st century, this truly ground-breaking text which helped establish childhood studies as a distinctive field of enquiry is being republished.

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This edited book explores the origins and evolution of the early childhood education and care (ECEC) system on the island of Ireland since the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1921. While the book acknowledges and celebrates the role of parents in caring for and educating their young children within the home, the key focus is on the provisions outside the home for children from birth to six years. It critiques the historical and contemporary provision under a number of key themes including curriculum, the policy and legislative landscapes, inspection and regulation, Irish language provision and professionalisation. Written by key experts and actors from the sector, it makes a unique contribution to the existing literature by bringing together in one collection a critical analysis of the key themes relating to the development of ECEC in Ireland. Moreover, signposts and signals for the future development of the sector are integral to the book.

-Offers school-based mentors in Scotland a practical toolkit to develop their mentoring skills, giving them the guidance needed to effectively support trainee and newly qualified early years, primary, and secondary teachers. -Gives a broad overview of the mentoring process and of mentoring teachers for long-term career development, exploring the nature of the mentor-mentee role within the Scottish context, guiding the mentee through lesson planning, and offering strategies for observation and lesson analysis. -Includes lesson plans and feedback sheets, observation sheets, case studies, sample dialogues, and learning activities and exercise, giving mentors practical tools for use with teachers in a classroom setting. -Offers an online eResource offering downloadable resources and web-based training material.

Now in its second edition, this popular text explores classrooms where technology and critical literacies are woven into childhood curricula and teaching. Using real-world stories, it addresses what ICTs afford critical literacy with young children, and how new technologies can be positioned to engage in meaningful and authentic learning. Concise but comprehensive, the text provides strategies, theoretical frameworks, demonstrations of practice, and resources for teachers. Updated with discussions of media literacy and new pedagogical tools, the second edition features new classroom examples and experiences that highlight the ways in which critical literacy, technology and media literacy come together in everyday life in the early childhood classroom. The inviting examples model how to use the interests and inquiry questions of young learners as a springboard for creating a critical curriculum. Each chapter includes Reflection Points, pedagogical invitations, and Resource Boxes to imagine new possibilities of working with students in engaging and supportive ways. The inspiring stories, guidance, and tools this book make it a great resource for pre-service teachers and students in Early Childhood Education and Literacy Education, and primary teachers and educators.

Crafted from a research project that lasted for three years, this book examines the impacts of China's universal two-child policy under the lens of education and focuses specifically on early childhood. This book not only provides number projection, but also the prediction and judgment of the supply and demand of service resources in early childhood education. It attempts to reveal the attitudes and views of families and stakeholders on the universal two-child policy and present the public's policy requirements for the quality of early childhood education. In addition, it analyses possible problems and challenges in current kindergarten layouts and resources allocation. Lastly, it aims to provide references and bases for formulating the plan that adapts to changes of Chinese preschoolers, supply guarantee of future early childhood education and the construction of public service system. Offering rich insights into the current and future status of education in China, this text will be of interest to students, scholars, and researchers of sociology, early childhood education, contemporary China studies, East Asian educational practices and policy.

Building on the success of the first volume of Researching Play from a Playwork Perspective, this book further develops the crucial research of playwork as an emerging and unique discipline. The first volume explored how an understanding of playwork theory and practice can inform research into children's play. From the seven contributors, four common themes to researching play from a playwork perspective were identified: rights-based; process, critical reflection and playfulness. This second volume aims to explore these four factors from two angles. The first considers how four more playworkers have researched play in four different contexts: prison, gender and toys, in Dutch play provision, and in the area of autism. In the second part of the book, the four pillars of playwork research are explored by academics from other disciplines with an interest in playwork research. This will be of great interest to researchers and upper-level students in the fields of playwork, childcare, early years, education, psychology and children's rights. It will also appeal to practitioners in a wide variety of professional contexts, including childcare and therapy.

This book provides new and empirically grounded research-based knowledge and insights into the current transformation of the Russian child welfare system. It focuses on the major shift in Russia's child welfare policy: deinstitutionalisation of the system of children's homes inherited from the Soviet era and an increase in fostering and adoption. Divided into four sections, this book details both the changing role and function of residential institutions within the Russian child welfare system and the rapidly developing form of alternative care in foster families, as well as work undertaken with birth families. By analysing the consequences of deinstitutionalisation and its effects on children and young people as well as their foster and birth parents, it provides a model for understanding this process across the whole of the post-Soviet space. It will be of interest to academics and students of social work, sociology, child welfare, social policy, political science, and Russian and East European politics more generally.

British Froebelian Women from the Mid-Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century presents a series of critical case studies of individual women who worked and advocated for the cause of Froebelian and progressive pedagogy in Britain from the mid-nineteenth century until the present day. The book presents a compelling picture of how women have contributed in powerful ways to educational life and child-centred practices. The book examines the beliefs and values of its subjects, offering crucial insights into how these women forged their professional identities and practice as new thinking about education and childhood emerged, and considers the differing forms of inspiration they drew from their connections with the Froebelian community. This book will be of great interest for postgraduate students and academics in the fields of Women's Studies, History of Education, Early Childhood Education and Early Childhood Studies.

Drawing on participatory action research conducted with students, parents, families, and school staff in a Southwest community in the United States, this volume contests the interpretation of the achievement gap for students of Mexican descent in the American education system and highlights asset-based approaches that can facilitate students' academic success. By presenting the Asset-Based Bicultural Continuum Model (ABC) and demonstrating the applications in a variety of family, school, and community-based initiatives, this volume demonstrates how community and cultural wealth can be harnessed to increase educational opportunities for Latino students. The ABC model offers new strategies which capitalize on the bicultural and linguistic assets rooted in local communities and offers place-based strategies driven by communities themselves in order to be tailored to students' strengths. The text makes a significant contribution to understanding the social ecology of Latinx students' experiences and offers a new direction for effective and evidence-based academic and health programs across the United States. This book will be a valuable resource for researchers and academics with an interest in the sociology of education, multicultural education, urban education, and bilingual education. It will be of particular interest to those with a focus on Hispanic and Latino studies.