Developmental movement play: moving into motion to transform lives and well-being: using ourselves to communicate through movement

"This paper is a reflection on a Developmental Movement Play (DMP) programme based on relationship play (Sherborne, 1990) for parents and young children experiencing emotional, behavioural and/or mental health difficulties. This practitioner-led research explores how using ourselves to communicate through movement can transform lives and well-being. This study demonstrates how taking part in physically active, non-verbal relationship play helps to improve the lives of vulnerable families. The process is discussed in light of the participants’ relationships with each other and the changes brought about through their shared movement experiences.

Are you listening to me? Understanding children's rights through Hungarian pedagogic practice

Hungarian pedagogues agree that children should be listened to, have their rights recognised, and their voices heard.  The UNCRC recommends that children’s rights should be part of early childhood education, but this is not typical in Hungarian kindergartens and there is little pedagogical material to support the education of children about their rights.  This paper focuses on 5 kindergartens each typically accommodating over 150 children between the ages of 3-6 years old across Hungary. Six pedagogues worked with multi-age groups (4 kindergartens) and same-age groups (2 kindergartens).  The research adopted participatory methods to gather children’s views recognising them as valuable collaborators.  Children provided insight into their own lives through play based creative activities that focused on eliciting children’s thoughts and feelings.  Pedagogues collected video data using a ‘toolkit’ of children’s play activities during a 6-week period of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Pedagogues reflected on children’s play through a series of online focus groups with emphasis on how children expressed their views and preferences through play. Participants were encouraged to examine the power relationships between children and adults and analyse their role in knowledge production rather than knowledge extraction. Six themes emerged through thematic analysis, mapped to the 4 guiding principles of children’s rights: participation, survival, development and protection.  The findings highlight the juxtaposition between children’s life-as-experienced and life-as-told by adults; the skill of pedagogues to hear and sensitively interpret children’s voices based on their play and the challenge to slow down and reflect on practice

Education vs. Entertainment: A Cultural History of Children's Software

Part of the Volume on the Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning This chapter draws on ethnographic material to consider the cultural politics and recent history of children's software and reflects on how this past can inform our current efforts to mobilize games for learning. The analysis uses a concept of genre as a way of making linkages across the distributed but interconnected circuit of everyday play, software content, and industry context. Organized through three genres in children's software -- academic, entertainment, and construction -- the body of the chapter describes how these genres play out within a production and advertising context, in the design of particular software titles, and at sites of play in after-school computer centers where the fieldwork was conducted

“Same but different”: A visual ethnography of the everyday lives of siblings with autistic children in South Korea

This study explores the ordinary daily lives of siblings of autistic children in South Korea and draws on four theoretical perspectives: social psychological, young carers, the new sociology of childhood and cross-cultural. Building on knowledge of sibling’s of autistic and other disabled children in western context, I used techniques of visual ethnography to extend understanding of the everyday lives of children with autistic siblings. Nine children, aged between aged 7 and 15, in two South Korean cities were given cameras to make 'video diaries' and 'home movies' over a two week period. This was followed by reviewing sessions with the researcher to discuss the films and invitations to prepare further, age appropriate, visual representations of family life. Interviews were also held with nine mothers and two fathers to elicit their understandings of the expectations and experiences of the child participants. Despite the modernising effects of globalisation in South Korea, the values and normative expectations of Confucian familism still provided firm foundations for family life and family expectations. Reflected by limited support from the State or voluntary organisations, the children carried important responsibilities for their autistic siblings. Important insights into their ordinary daily lives included: i) 'sacrifice' as a key part of the fulfilment of filial obligation across the life span, ii) children conceptualized their relationships with their autistic siblings as 'same but different' from those of other children; iii) the children and their autistic siblings developed 'Jeong' (strong interpersonal ties) and 'Woori’ (togetherness) that are typical of sibling relationships in Korea, iv) high value was placed on 'harmonious family life' with significant implications for the siblings' daily lives, v) autism was integrated as part of everyday life despite experiences of stigmatising attitudes and vi) invisible vulnerabilities were reinforced by the strength of traditional expectations that discouraged consideration of die 'costs' of’ being a good sibling’. The voices and world views of the children in this study lead to the conclusion that Confucian familist values represent a source of strength as well as challenges for the siblings of autistic children in South Korea

Chinese-Norwegian Children's Experiences with Social Media and Online Games

Denne studien utforsker kinesisk-norske immigrantbarns levde erfaringer og påvirkningen av sosiale medier på deres daglige liv. Immigrantbarn blir ofte sett på som marginaliserte og sårbare grupper som trenger beskyttelse, spesielt ettersom digitale teknologier i økende grad integrerer sosiale nettverk i alle aspekter av livet. Med teoretiske rammeverk som barns aktørskap, relasjonell handlingskapasitet, sosial konstruksjonisme, media og diskurs,”ambient co-presence” og "affordances," benytter denne forskningen kvalitative intervjumetoder inspirert av deltakende tilnærminger. Tegne- og setningsfullføringsteknikker ble brukt for å samle barnas stemmer og perspektiver. Tematisk analyse identifiserte tre hovedtemaer: (1) barnas nasjonale og transnasjonale forbindelser gjennom sosiale medier og online spill; (2) deres positive og negative oppfatninger av disse plattformene; og (3) hvordan kinesisk-norske immigrantbarn navigerer i dobbelte kulturelle normer og den kinesiske foreldrekulturens påvirkning på deres bruk av disse plattformene. Funnene viser at barn bruker sosiale medier og online spill for å opprettholde kontakt med familie og venner i Kina, samt for å knytte bånd til både kinesiske og norske venner i Norge. Disse plattformene muliggjør også interaksjoner med internasjonale spillere, noe som gir språkopplæring, spillstrategier og kulturell utveksling. Selv om sosiale medier gir betydelige fordeler, møter barna også risikoer som nettmobbing, svindel, vold og påvirkning på fysisk helse. Videre opplever barna kulturelle spenninger når de integrerer kinesiske og norske verdier. Denne oppgaven konkluderer med at barn er kompetente informanter, hvis handlingskapasitet – formet av sosiale mediers og online spill sin "affordances," doble kulturpåvirkninger, foreldres oppdragelsesstil og relasjoner med jevnaldrende og lærere – spiller en dynamisk rolle i deres sosiale interaksjoner, valg og følelsesmessige responser.  This study explores the lived experiences of Chinese-Norwegian immigrant children and the impact of social media on their daily lives. Often characterized as marginalized and vulnerable, immigrant children face unique challenges, especially as mobile and online technologies increasingly integrate social networks into every aspect of their lives. Using theoretical frameworks of children’s agency, relational agency, social constructionism, media and discourse, ambient co-presence, and affordances, this research employs qualitative interview methods inspired by participatory approaches. Techniques such as drawing and sentence completion were used to gather children’s voices and perspectives. Thematic analysis identified three main themes: (1) children’s national and transnational connections through social media and online games; (2) their positive and negative perceptions of these platforms; and (3) the ways Chinese-Norwegian immigrant children navigate dual cultural norms and the influence of Chinese parental values on their engagement with these platforms. The findings reveal that children use social media and online games to maintain contact with family and friends in China, as well as to connect with both Chinese and Norwegian friends in Norway. These platforms also facilitate interactions with international players, enabling language learning, gaming strategies, and cultural exchange. While social media offers significant benefits, children also encounter risks, including cyberbullying, fraud, online violence, and impacts on physical health. Moreover, children perceive cultural tensions when integrating Chinese and Norwegian values. This thesis concludes that children are competent informants, whose agency—shaped by social media and online game affordances, dual cultural influences, parental approaches, and peer and teacher relationships—plays a dynamic role in their social interactions, choices, and emotional responses

Teachers\u27 knowledge and practice of empowering young children in four early childhood settings in Australia and the United Kingdom

This study explores teacher\u27s knowledge and practice of empowering young children as learners. Empowerment is a complex and multifaceted construct, and a recurring theme in early childhood literature. This study took place in four early childhood settings in Australia and the United Kingdom. The research was conducted using qualitative methodology, primarily with the use of video-taped observations and stimulated-recall teacher interviews. Findings indicate that the teachers enacted their knowledge and practice of empowerment. However, empowerment was interpreted differently by each teacher. The current study found links existed between teachers\u27 knowledge and practice and their pedogogic orientation

UNLV College of Education Multicultural & Diversity Newsletter

A newsletter discussing a variety of topics dealing with multicultural topics and diversity in education

The ignored audience : a multi-method reception study on children and television news in Albania

Children are not considered to be an appropriate audience for news coverage based on their presumed lack of emotional maturity, critical thinking and proper knowledge. This article challenges these views by presenting the opinions of children aged 10–15 who report having watched broadcast news nearly every day. Additionally, the views of adults aged 25–62 are investigated. Children contest to the ways they are being portrayed by the news media and demonstrate their need to be considered as active participants in the public sphere, which is presented by the news media as an exclusive domain for adults. </jats:p

Partners in Play: How Children Organise their Participation in Sociodramatic Play

In Ireland, early childhood learning and the role of play in children’s lives is receiving unprecedented recognition in national policy documents (Ireland, 1999c, 1999a, 1999b, 2000, 2004, N.C.C.A., 2004, C.E.C.D.E., 2006b). This thesis links learning and play and proposes to contribute to our understanding of both. The purpose of the research is to explicate the significant processes and outcomes of children’s participation in sociodramatic play. It takes a qualitative, ethnographic, interpretive approach which follows logically from the aim and the sociocultural discourse of learning constructed. This sociocultural discourse frames the observation and analysis of sociodramatic play in the study. Three key elements of sociocultural theory become the themes that are explored. They are (1) that children’s participation in play is mediated by culture, (2) that the processes and outcomes of sociodramatic play are negotiated on the intermental plane at the micro level of face to face interaction and at the macro level of transaction with cultural goals, values, artefacts and practices and (3) that in the process of participation in sociodramatic play, both culture and participants are transformed towards ongoing participation. The study is conducted primarily through participant observation in a suburban preschool playgroup with a cohort of 22 children ranging in age from 2 years and 8 months to 4 years and 9 months, over an academic year. The data consists of play episodes and field notes documented with the support of video recordings and analysed using Rogoff’s (1995) three planes of analysis. These planes align with the three themes of the research and provide the structure for the analysis chapters. The Community or Apprenticeship Plane is used to demonstrate the cultural nature of sociodramatic play. The Interpersonal or Guided Participation Plane serves to identify the interactive processes and outcomes in which children participate, while on the Individual or Participatory Appropriation Plane, outcomes in terms of cultural and personal transformations are considered. The findings of this research emerge from both the explication of sociocultural theory and the dialectic between the theoretical perspective and the play episodes. The theoretical perspective itself is a key contribution, with implications for early childhood education and the place of sociodramatic play. The study further explicates the processes of learning on the intermental plane and thereby informs the role of the early childhood pedagogue. Key play competencies, particularly emotional intersubjectivity, are identified. The ethnographic approach allows us to follow children’s transformations as they reconstruct, through their sociodramatic play roles and stories, their ways of belonging, contributing and communicating within the peer culture. The findings propose an individual-in-social activity centred pedagogy – a pedagogy of connection - with philosophical and practical implications for the practice of pedagogy