Bringing together valuable insights from research and practice undertaken at the world-famous Pen Green Centre, Democratising Leadership in the Early Years illustrates how settings and practitioners can develop and maintain forms of leadership which foster collaborative practices across and within settings and services. Effective leadership is key to establishing socially inclusive and democratic practices and as such, it has become a key concern for policy-makers, researchers and practitioners in the field of Early Childhood Education and Care. Drawing on authors' first-hand experiences, on systems theory, psychological theory and neuroscience, chapters in this book illustrate the role of highly effective leadership in ensuring that services are accessible, inclusive and innovative. Practical advice will support professionals in overcoming destructive systemic and psychological dynamics to flatten hierarchies, improve relationships, learning and educational outcomes, and to encourage staff, parents, and children to contribute creatively to collaborative enterprises. Accessible and insightful, Democratising Leadership in the Early Years will improve understanding of approaches to leadership and support early years practitioners, students and managers as they develop their leadership skills and build capacity within settings and the wider community.

An Interdisciplinary Approach to Early Childhood Education and Care explores early childhood education and care in Australia from a variety of perspectives, highlighting the complexity of working within the field and the need for a truly interdisciplinary approach. It argues that only a holistic understanding of each perspective will allow a clear future for early childhood education within Australia, and that all government parties should provide better outcomes around policy and provision to ensure the support and development of the sector. Chapters offer insights into how children and families are positioned in educational reform by examining current government policy, as well as individual and collective initiatives. Key paradigms considered include positivist, behavioural, developmental, economic, sociocultural, and postmodern models. Garvis and Manning identify challenges to the field and propose improvements needed to develop an interdisciplinary approach to help close the disadvantage gap on educational outcomes. With recommendations aimed at stakeholders within different disciplines, it is hoped that this book will encourage significant improvements to early childhood education and care within Australia. Providing important insights into the landscape of early childhood education and care, this book will promote new ways of thinking of policy and provision development for the future. As such, it will be of interest to researchers, academics, and postgraduate students in the fields of early years education, education policy and politics, and sociology of education, as well as those studying childcare alongside economics, criminology and sociology.

Reflection and Reflective Spaces in the Early Years will support readers in developing their own reflective practice and creating reflective environments for the young children and families they work with. Combining case studies and reflective tasks to compliment a range of theories, concepts and alternative approaches to reflection, this book shows how the reflective process can help practitioners adapt to rapid changes in the sector and improve professional practice. Drawing on action research alongside the use of Japanese words and concepts (such as Ikigai, exploring your reason for being, Hansei, the art of honest self- reflection, and Wabi-Sabi, reflecting upon your perfectly imperfect self), chapters are full of practical guidance, activities and questions to prompt reflective thinking, covering such topics as: Reflection and Reflective Theory The Art of Self Reflection The Reflective Underground Creating Reflective Spaces in the Early Years The Rainbow Researcher Framework How to create reflective spaces in Early Years Exploring Creative Methods of Reflection This book will be invaluable reading for early years practitioners, tutors and early years students on level 3 courses and Foundation Degrees, but also for anyone interested in reflection or starting an academic or professional journey where you are required to reflect upon your practice.

Connecting Children focuses on children's understandings of care and their views of different family lives. It portrays the lives of children aged 11-12 and shows how families connect children in different ways both in the household but also in their wider kinship networks. The children studied reflect upon family life and especially upon situations where their own family lives change dramatically, such as when parents divorce or are unable to care for them.
This book will be of interest to those working in education, social work, child care, counselling, social policy and childhood studies.

From Molly Potter, best-selling author of How Are You Feeling Today? and What's Worrying You?, comes a picture book for starting conversations with children about death, bereavement and what happens next. When someone dies, we can feel a whole host of different emotions and explaining them to a child isn't so easy. This book uses clear, easy-to-understand language to answer complex questions about death and how a child might feel when someone dies. It covers all manner of tricky subjects with sensitivity and honesty, from what death is to why people die. Each double page spread takes a child through how they might feel, what they might think and how they might behave. With engaging illustrations, gentle guidance and simple advice for parents and carers, Let's Talk About When Someone Dies fulfils an important but difficult need for starting conversations with children about death and bereavement, in an accessible and supportive way.

This volume focuses on very young children's (aged 0-8) rights in a digital world. It gathers current research from around the globe that focuses on young children's rights as agental citizens to the provision of and participation in digital devices and content-as well as their right to protection from harm. The UN Digital Rights Framework of 2014 addresses children's needs, agency and vulnerability to harm in today's digital world and implies roles and responsibilities for a variety of social actors including the state, families, schools, commercial entities, researchers and children themselves. This volume presents a broad range of research, including chapters on parental supervision and control, the changing forms of play, early childhood education, media and cultural studies, law, design, health, special-needs education, and engineering. Implicit within this book is the acknowledgement that children of various ages, abilities, socioeconomic and geographic backgrounds should have equal access to, and positive / non-harmful experiences with, new digital technologies and content-as well as adult support and expertise that enhances these experiences. This passionate book celebrates the diversity of young children's activities in the digital world. It interrogates these through four intersecting lenses: their rights, play experiences, contextualised design, and best practice. Balancing children's eager engagement with digital content alongside adult responsibilities for education, privacy and protection, the volume provides a fitting showcase for work of global relevance. Professor Lelia Green Professor of Communications Edith Cowan University Perth, Western Australia This compelling text provides a critical resource to inform our understanding of the intersection of the digital world and children's rights. Ilene R. Berson, Ph.D. Professor of Early Childhood Education Affiliate Faculty, Learning Design & Technology Area Coordinator, Early Childhood Coordinator, Early Childhood Ph.D. Program University of South Florida College of Education A truly international collection that investigates young children's engagement with digital technologies. Identifying issues of public interest around digital practices, this highly readable book is a valuable resource for researchers, parents and policy makers. Professor Susan Danby Director, ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child and, Faculty of Education School of Early Childhood and Inclusive Education QUT Kelvin Grove, Queensland

Embodied Family Choreography documents the lived and embodied practices employed to establish, maintain, and negotiate intimate social relationships in the family, examining forms of control, care, and creativity. Making use of the extensive video archives of family interaction in the US and Sweden, it presents the first investigation of how touch and interaction between bodies, in conjunction with talk, constitute a primary means of orchestrating activities through directives, thus creating rich relationships through supportive interchanges, and engaging in playful explorations of the world. Through close investigation of the sequential and simultaneous engagement of bodies interacting with other bodies, this book makes visible the important role touch plays in the context of contemporary Western middle class family life and is pioneering in its analysis of how the visual, aural, and haptic senses (usually analysed separately) mutually elaborate one another. As such, Embodied Family Choreography will appeal to scholars of child development, the sociology of the family and ethnomethodology and conversation analysis.

Challenging dominant discourses in the field of early childhood education, this book provides an accessible introduction to some of the alternative narratives and diverse perspectives that are increasingly to be heard in this field, as well as discussing the importance of paradigm, politics and ethics. Peter Moss draws on material published in the groundbreaking Contesting Early Childhood series to introduce readers to thinking that questions the mainstream approach to early childhood education and to offer rich examples to illustrate how this thinking is being put to work in practice. Key topics addressed include: dominant discourses in today's early childhood education - and what is meant by 'dominant discourse' why politics and ethics are the starting points for early childhood education Reggio Emilia as an example of an alternative narrative the relevance to early childhood education of thinkers such as Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze and of theoretical positions such as posthumanism. An enlightening read for students and practitioners, as well as policymakers, academics and parents, this book is intended for anyone who wants to think more about early childhood education and delve deeper into new perspectives and debates in this field.

Sure Start Local Programmes (SSLPs) was a major strategic effort by New Labour towards ending child poverty. By changing the way services were delivered to children under four and their families, through targeting and empowering highly-deprived small geographic areas, SSLPs were intended to enhance child, family and community functioning. Following 5 years of systemic research exploring the efficacy and impact of this grand experiment, this book pulls together, in a single volume, the results of the extensive National Evaluation of Sure Start (NESS). The book reviews the history of policies pertaining to child health and well being which preceded and set the stage for Sure Start. It provides insight into how SSLPs were expected to function and how they actually operated, both in terms of their strengths, weaknesses and costs. The contributors examine the nature of the communities in which these programmes were situated and how they changed over time; present the early effects of SSLPs on children and families, with evidence highlighting some small beneficial effects and some small deleterious ones and extract specific features of SSLPs that contributed to whether individual programmes benefited children and families, providing a guide for the revision of programmes and policies. With a foreword from Naomi Eisdenstadt, former Director of the Sure Start Programme and concluding chapter by Prof. Sir Michael Rutter, member of the government's scientific advisory board overseeing NESS, this book provides an insightful critique of SSLP policy and NESS that will be of interest to students of child development, families and communities, as well as policymakers and policy scholars, local and national providers of services to children and families and evaluation specialists.

Professionalism and Leadership in Early Childhood Education and Care explores the tension between what early years practitioners are expected to achieve, and the level of expertise and understanding required to underpin this. It examines the impact of recent policies on the agency of individual practitioners, and the culture and ethos of their settings, and questions the driving factors behind reforms to curriculum and practice and where this locates practitioners and their provision. Bringing together the latest research and ideas on professionalism and leadership, the book explores how professional status is understood and acquired and what makes this problematic in ECEC. It explores the impact of different leadership approaches, what needs to be challenged and sets out how the workforce might assert its own identity and values and continue to advocate for the needs of young children. Including case studies to illustrate the lived experiences of individual practitioners as they worked towards becoming graduate professionals, this will be valuable reading for early years professionals engaged in undergraduate and postgraduate study and those researching policy development and professional identity within ECEC.

The Decommodification of Early Childhood Education and Care: Resisting Neoliberalism explores how processes of marketisation and privatisation of ECEC have impacted understandings of children, childcare, parents, and the workforce, providing concrete examples of resistance to commodification from diverse contexts. Through processes of marketisation and privatisation, neoliberal discourses have turned ECEC into a commodity whereby economic principles of competition and choice have replaced the purpose of education. The Decommodification of Early Childhood Education and Care: Resisting Neoliberalism offers new and alternative understandings of policy and practice. Written with co-authors from diverse countries, case studies vividly portray resistance to children as human capital, to the "consumentality" of parents, and to the alienation of the early childhood workforce. Ending with messages of hope, the authors discuss the demise of neoliberalism and offer new ways forward. As an international book with global messages contributing to theory, policy, and practice regarding alternatives to a neoliberal and commodified vision of ECEC, this book offers inspiration for policy makers and practitioners to develop local resistance solutions. It will also be of interest to post-graduate students, researchers, educators, and pre-service educators with an interest in critical pedagogy, ECEC policy, and ECEC practice.

This book highlights contemporary questions around Early Childhood Education in Finland. It explores a range of issues relating to policies and practices in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). The book features many aspects of the so-called Nordic model that is evident in different practices and policies of the Finnish ECEC system. Among others topics, it discusses playful learning, storycrafting, scientific literacy, pedagogical leadership, family-related variables, and Sami language learning. The findings provide important insights into the Finnish ECEC model and illustrate relevant issues facing Finland. All of the 14 chapters present unique research and give the reader the opportunity to understand how the ECEC services during children's early years are defined and implemented. Each chapter includes a discussion of the educational outcome and highlights critical perspectives. In Finland ECEC is seen as an investment in the future. The Finnish ECEC system is one of the most equal in the world. The high-quality education is available to both private and public sectors. National curriculum and laws for early education have gone through a significant reform during the last decade, with the quality, practices and teachers' competences being defined in order to support children's future learning skills. ECEC in Finland is a unique combination of international influences and local intentions to put each child and family at the centre of the services. The systematic and goal-oriented ECEC system consists of upbringing, education and care with an emphasis on pedagogy in order to produce excellence for the future. Its overall planning, guidance and monitoring system is one of a kind.

Teaching and Learning for Intercultural Understanding is a comprehensive resource for educators in primary and early years classrooms. It provides teachers with a complete framework for developing intercultural understanding among pupils and includes practical and creative strategies and activities to stimulate discussion, awareness and comprehension of intercultural issues and ideas. Drawing on the most current research and work in the field of intercultural competence and existing models of intercultural understanding, this book explores topics such as: understanding culture and language the importance of personal and cultural identity engaging with difference cultivating positive attitudes and beliefs embedding awareness of local and global issues in students designing a classroom with intercultural understanding in mind. With detailed ready-to-use, enquiry-based lesson plans, which incorporate children's literature, talking points and media resources, this book encourages the practitioner to consider intercultural understanding as another lens through which to view the curriculum when creating and choosing learning materials and activities. Teaching and Learning for Intercultural Understanding sets out to help the reader engage young hearts and minds with global and local concepts in a way that is easily integrated into the life of all primary schools - from New York to New Delhi, from Birmingham to Bangkok.

The Handbook of International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education provides a groundbreaking compilation of research from an interdisciplinary group of distinguished experts in early childhood education (ECE), child development, cultural and cross-cultural research in the psychological sciences, etc. The chapters provide current overviews of ECE in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, Africa, Europe, the US, and Canada, and convey how ECE is multi-sectorial, multi-cultural, and multi-disciplinary, undergirded by such disciplines as neuroscience, psychological anthropology, cross-cultural human development, childhood studies, and political science.

Young Children's Experimental Cookery encourages Early Years practitioners and teachers to take an innovative and creative approach to introducing young children to food and cooking. The book addresses wider issues such as healthy eating and food preparation skills, but also moves beyond the concept of traditional cookery lessons to celebrate food as a creative medium, offering immense scope for multi-sensory exploration and a variety of high quality learning experiences. Practitioners are encouraged to abandon recipes, take a step back, and afford children the freedom to chop, mix, stir and concoct their own creations, exploring fresh ingredients and experimenting with new tastes and smells along the way. Bridging the gap between food preparation and the development of confidence, imagination and creative-thinking skills, this open-ended approach to cooking sessions will equip children with skills which go far beyond those needed in the kitchen. Featuring full-colour photographs throughout, as well as detailed case studies and practical tips for various seasons and food groups, this accessible and exciting resource is ideal for practitioners, teachers, parents and budding chefs! Every school and Early Years setting should have at least one copy in their staff room.

In this book, Silin maps the common ground between early childhood and the period sociologists call "young-old age." Emphasizing the continuities that bind children and adults rather than the differences that traditional developmental psychology claims separate us, he focuses on the themes we all manage across a lifetime. Building on memoir and narrative, Silin argues that when we recognize how the concerns of childhood continue to thread their way through our experience, we look anew at the shape of our lives. This book highlights the powerful generative acts through which people of all ages find new meanings and relationships to compensate for the individual and social losses that mark our lives.

_______________ The 50 Fantastic Ideas series is packed full of fun, original, skills-based activities for Early Years practitioners to use with children aged 0-5. Each activity features step-by-step guidance, a list of resources, and a detailed explanation of the skills children will learn. Creative, simple, and highly effective, this series is a must-have for every Early Years setting. Packed full of inspiring activities which re-invigorate and extend traditional areas of early years provision, 50 Fantastic Things to Do with a Water Tray is a must have for pre-schools and nurseries. Each activity features easy to follow step-by-step instructions with additional ideas on how to extend the activity inside and outdoors. The learning possibilities are clearly identified and practitioners can see at a glance what the children will get out of the activity.

Authentic Teaching and Learning for PreK-Fifth Grade provides examples of pedagogical approaches to enhance rich curriculums based around frameworks such as Teaching for Understanding, Making Thinking and Learning Visible, Artful Thinking, and Out of Eden Learn. You will learn about real classrooms that have successfully transformed cutting-edge ideas from these different frameworks into powerful learning experiences. A highly practical resource based on Harvard's Project Zero ideas, this book shares how research findings have been complemented and implemented in the field, and will teach you how to apply best practices that lead to meaningful and authentic learning experiences in the classroom that promote Habits of Mind.

_______________ The 50 Fantastic Ideas series is packed full of fun, original, skills-based activities for Early Years practitioners to use with children aged 0-5. Each activity features step-by-step guidance, a list of resources, and a detailed explanation of the skills children will learn. Creative, simple, and highly effective, this series is a must-have for every Early Years setting. In order to be able to think creatively, children have to be encouraged to use their imaginations and play autonomously. When setting up open-ended learning opportunities that stimulate children to investigate possibilities practitioners need easily accessible, cost effective resources. The rationale behind using cardboard boxes is the simple fact that they are cheap and open-ended, meaning they can be easily sourced and simply transformed by both adults and children. A cardboard box is a resource that when left alone, does nothing in particular but comes to life in the hands of children, requiring them to use their imagination or to build on their past experiences. Boxes as open-ended materials greatly enhance the play experience, as they require children to bring their thoughts into the play experience in a deeper way.

Children's and young people's right to participate has been increasingly acknowledged and taken up internationally, as expressed in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Yet much of this has focused on collecting children's voices, rather than achieving change, and has met its limits. This book provides an analysis of children's participation in formal, collective and action research processes in six different international settings. It offers a deeper understanding of what helps and facilitates children's and young people's participation through research, evaluation and decision-making to go beyond voice and effect change. This analysis is set in the context of historical and current discourses of participation, the sociology of childhood, contemporary anthropology, children's geography and international development. Themes addressed include time and processes in children's participation, shifting and multiple identities of children, political and cultural contexts, places and spaces children inhabit, skills and capacities of adults, accountability and power. The analysis promotes an approach to children's participation as relational and collaborative, and will contribute to answering some of the questions facing practitioners and researchers embarking on participatory enquiry with children and young people. This is an invaluable book for practitioners and for scholars, postgraduates in anthropology, sociology, human geography, childhood studies, development studies, social policy, social work, community work, education, youth work and those with an interest in citizenship, children's rights and human rights. Researchers and practitioners in UN, government and non-government services will also find it applicable to engaging with children and young people.

This comprehensive text highlights new developments in sociological, educational and psychological aspects of socialisation, examining how human beings as 'subjects' - experiencing, thinking and acting individuals - confront the material, social and cultural 'objects' of their environment and sustain their position. The authors provide an overview of the most important theories of socialisation, then integrate these using the Productive Processing of Reality (PPR) model. This novel approach is applied to a life course analysis, examining developmental tasks and the challenges of productive processing of the internal and external reality at various stages of development. The book also considers contexts, addressing the inequalities between different socio-economic and ethnic groups and genders, to consider how humans - with their genetic dispositions and their individual instincts and needs - solve the task of coping with the requirements of society, culture and economy while at the same time safeguarding their status as unique individuals. It is core reading for advanced students on socialisation modules in developmental or social psychology and educational sciences and is additionally of value for the professional training of sociologists, teachers and social workers. It is also relevant for all those interested in elementary questions of how the interaction between the society and the individual works; how human beings deal not only with themselves but also with their social and physical environment, and how they shape it in their own way.

This book offers a detailed examination of reflective practice in teacher education. In the current educational context, where reflective practice has been mandated in professional standards for teachers in many countries, it analyses research-based evidence for the power of reflective practice to shape better educational outcomes. The book presents multiple theoretical and practical views of this often taken-for-granted practice, so that readers are challenged to consider how factors such as gender and race shape understandings of reflective practice. Documenting approaches that enhance learning, the contributions discuss reflective practice across the globe, with a focus on pre-service, in-service and university teachers. At a time when there is pressure to measure teachers' work through standardised tests, the book highlights the professional thinking that is integral to teaching and demonstrates ways it can be encouraged in beginning teachers. Aimed at the international community of teacher educators in schools and universities, it also includes a critical examination of methodological issues in analysing and evaluating reflective practice and showcases the kind of reflective practice that empowers teachers and pre-service teachers to make a difference to students.

The Chinese language is now used by a quarter of the world's population and is increasingly popular as a second language. Teaching Chinese Literacy in the Early Years comprehensively investigates the psychology, pedagogy and practice involved in teaching Chinese literacy to young children. This text not only explores the psycholinguistic and neuropsychological processing involved in learning Chinese literacy but also introduces useful teaching methods and effective practices relevant for teaching within early years and primary education. Key issues explored within this text include: The Psycholinguistics of Chinese Literacy Neuropsychological Understanding of Chinese Literacy The pedagogy of teaching Chinese as a first language The Pedagogy of Teaching Chinese as a second language Teaching Chinese literacy in early childhood settings Assessing Chinese Literacy Attainment in the Early Years With the addition of two reliable Chinese literacy scales, Teaching Chinese Literacy in the Early Years is an essential text for any student, lecturer or professional teacher who is interested in learning and teaching Chinese literacy.

This book conceptualizes the 'lived spaces' of infant and toddler early education and care settings by bringing together international authors researching within diverse theoretical frameworks. It highlights diverse ways of understanding the experiences of very young children by exposing the ways that the authors are grappling with the unknown. The work explores broadly the construct and meanings of 'lived spaces' as relational spaces, interactional spaces, transitional spaces, curriculum spaces or pedagogical spaces operating within the social, physical and temporal environment of infant-toddler education settings. The book invites interchange between and among diverse theories and approaches and through this build new understanding of infants' and toddlers' experiences and interactions in early education and care settings. It also considers the implications of this work for policy and practice in infant and toddler education and care.