Aesthetic-ethical-political movements in professional learning: Encounters with feminist new materialisms and Reggio Emilia in early childhood research

© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Professional learning is considered essential for early childhood teachers, and is frequently associated with childhood outcomes and dominant constructs of quality which perpetuate neoliberal ideals and position early childhood teachers within a framework of rationality, privileging discourses of masculinity and power. By engaging with feminist new materialist perspectives, with the concept of ‘movement’, and with the theory-practice of the educational project of the city of Reggio Emilia, Italy, this paper extends understandings of professional learning to include nonhuman others as worthy interlocutors, and puts forth an invitation to welcome unease and an aesthetic-ethical-political stance in early childhood education. To complicate normative conceptions of professional learning, fragments from a project that used pedagogical documentation and dialogue to transform children’s relations with waste are presented. These fragments elucidate how professional learning in early childhood education might be aesthetically-ethically-politically conceptually grounded and practiced. The conclusions presented are neither simple nor linear; rather invitations are offered to problematise, to avoid being satisfied with overt, dominant and linear constructs, and to welcome uncertainty in worldly relations

Dancing with Reggio Emilia: Metaphors for quality

Stefania Giamminuti spent six months researching in the municipal infant-toddler centres and schools of Reggio Emilia, Italy. Her unique experiences are vividly recounted in this rich book, with its seductive images and lyrical storytelling drawing the reader into daily events in these world-renowned places for young children. The voices and contexts of children, teachers atelieriste, pedagogiste, and families in Reggio Emilia come alive in this important and impressive book—an invitation to encounter the beauty and complexity of this exceptional social and cultural projects of early education. Stefania proposes a new key for interpreting the educational project of Reggio Emilia in international contexts by exploring the ‘local values’ that emerged through her observation of life in Nido Arcobaleno and Scuola Pablo Neruda and relating these to ‘connective values’ to inform the philosophy, policy and practice of early childhood education and care internationally. Stefania engages with the construct of ‘quality’ in early childhood education and care, proposing new approaches to theorising quality as a metaphor and complex cultural and value-laded construct

Research as an Ethic of Welcome and Relationship: Pedagogical Documentation in Reggio Emilia, Italy

Recent and increasing efforts to standardize young children’s academic performance have shifted the emphases of education toward normative practices and away from qualitative, substantive intentions. Connection to human experience, compassion for societal ailments, and the joys of learning are straining under the pressure of quantitative research, competition, and test scores, exemplified by federal funding competitions and policymaking. Disrupting Early Childhood Education Research critically interrogates the traditional foundations of early childhood research practices to disrupt the status quo through imaginative, cutting-edge research in diverse U.S. and international contexts. Its chapters are driven by empirical data derived from unique research projects and a variety of contemporary methodologies that include phenomenological studies, auto-ethnographic writings, action-oriented studies, arts-based methodologies, and other innovative approaches. By giving voice to marginalized social science researchers who are active in learning, school, and early education sectors, this volume explores the meanings of actionable and everyday approaches based on the experiences of young children, their families, and educators

Early Childhood Educators’ Perspectives on Children’s Rights: The Relationship between Images of Childhood and Pedagogical Practice

There is a need to understand better the role that early childhood educators’ perspectives on children’s rights play in informing pedagogical practice. In the Australian context there is unease regarding the place of children’s rights in current curriculum policy. This article examines how educators’ perspectives on children’s rights inform and influence their pedagogical practice. The ethnographic study reported here involved the participation of three early childhood teachers located in one Western Australian metropolitan primary school, and generated data through the combination of walking tours, photographs of the school environment, and a focus-group interview. Themes of “Access” and “Power-fullness” emerged from the data as local values illustrating the relationship between images of childhood held by teachers and pedagogical practice. The theoretical propositions of “Pedagogy of Place and Space” and “Pedagogy of Possibilities” are offered as provocations for educators of young children wishing to enhance their practice with a children’s rights-based discourse