Young children's participation in a Sure Start Children's Centre

Between 2006 and 2010 New Labour launched a network of children's centres as one element in a programme of reform of services for children. Sure Start children's centres were set up as multi-agency settings for children under the age of five and their families. Concomitant with these developments a number of policies converged to give momentum to the notion of children's participation in matters that affect their lives. Political measures included Every Child Matters (DES, 2003) and section 3.5 of the Childcare Act (2006) which stated that local authorities must consider the views of children in relation to early childhood services. Consequently, there was and remains an imperative for children's centres to bring children's perspectives to bear upon their policies and practice, and to ensure that children participate in decisions regarding service design, delivery and evaluation (Sure Start, 2005). Using a methodology that draws upon the traditions of ethnography and participatory action research, this thesis presents an analysis of how the notion of children's participation has been conceptualised, enacted and enhanced in a Phase One children's centre in the North of England across the following services: education and care; family support; child and family health; inclusion and therapy services. Fieldwork was conducted with children, parents and staff of Towersham Park Children's Centre over a twelve month period during 2008-2009 and involved a variety of observational and participatory methods. Previous research about Sure Start predominantly focuses on the effectiveness of programme delivery. However, there is very little research which explores children's participation across a range of children's centre services and includes the perspectives of those who often face barriers to participation, such as babies, preverbal and disabled children and those from ethnic minority and migrant groups. This study addresses these gaps. Research findings suggest that, to understand what young children's participation means in a children's centre context, we need to pay attention to the different socio-spatial domains, cultural-ethical dilemmas and dominant discursive regimes within which participation is situated. Unmasking these domains, dilemmas and discourses enables practitioners to examine their effects of power in constraining and enhancing children's participation and to construct new ways of thinking and being with children. I conclude by arguing that children's participation is as much a micro-political and ethical process of embodied performance in space, as it is a cognitive, discursive activity of children expressing their views and making decisions. These findings have significant implications both for broadening current conceptualisations of participation to make them more inclusive of young, pre-verbal and disabled children and for informing early childhood multi-professional practice to make it more democratic

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

This chapter will aim to introduce key issues related to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion by discussing the concepts with specific references to early childhood in national and international context. Diversity will be illustrated in a broader perspective relating to gender , race, culture, religion, ability/disability. References to the concept of intersectionality will highlight the importance of perceiving the child as a whole rather than looking from a single filter relating to one of the categories of diversity listed above. The importance and relevance of the Anti-Bias approaches such as anti racist, anti sexist, anti ableist, anti homophobic in the current context of early childhood will be discussed. The perspectives presented in this chapter will be illustrated with examples, case studies and reflection points to aid understanding. There will be links made to policies, challenges and debates around the issues related to Diversity, equity and inclusion in the contemporary and evolving contexts of early childhood

"Hey the Tomatoes Didn't Grow, but Something Else Did!": Contesting Containment, Cultivating Competence in Children Labeled with Disabilities

In this article we offer a number of empirical examples to argue that educational practices designed to provide children labeled with disabilities with a free and appropriate public education can lead to an experience of "containment." Drawing upon data from two science projects conducted with children labeled with disabilities in an elementary school in the United States we explore adults' and children's experiences of contesting containment in a special education classroom, alongside a concomitant desire to cultivate competence. Based on the work of Foucault (1977) we suggest that children with labels face a number of containment strategies including: exclusion and classification (categorizing and placing children in segregated classrooms with an alternative curriculum); individualization (Individual Education Plans); examination and assessment (measuring children's attainment against predetermined goals and tests); and control (the regulation and self-regulation of children's bodies and behaviors). Notwithstanding these disabling constraints, it is possible to move towards an approach informed by Disability Studies in Education (DSE), in which competence is cultivated through more inclusive strategies. These include positioning children as abled rather than labeled through taking a Universal Design approach to Learning (UDL); recognizing children's multimodal communicative practices; constructing learning stories as a narrative form of pedagogical documentation and assessment; valorizing the ways in which children contest containment and control through their bodily actions and child-initiated narratives; and respecting children's autonomy in the learning process