Child-led research with young children:Challenging the ways to do research

Child-led research is gaining increasing attention. Such research involves children leading throughout the research process, from research design to dissemination. Child-led research has tested adult-centric research assumptions, with debates in the literature about researchers’ expertise and responsibilities. If these debates are testing for child-led research undertaken with older children and young people, they are even more so for young children below school-starting age. This article examines child-led research undertaken in a Froebelian early years setting, over 11 months, with 36 children aged between 2 and 5 years, from the adult facilitators’ perspectives. The article utilises the research’s documentation, including mind maps, photographs and story books, songs and video recordings, and an interview undertaken with the facilitating early years practitioner and supporting academic. Learning from this, the article challenges the assumption, in much of the literature on child-led research, that adults need to transmit their knowledge of research methods to children. Instead, a ‘slow pedagogy’ can build on children’s own knowledge, collectively, with time to come to research understandings. The article concludes that child-led research is feasible with young children, but the research process can include or exclude certain forms of children’s communication, making some children more ‘competent’ to undertake research than others

Finding Froebel: National and Cross-National Pedagogical Paths in Froebelian Early Childhood Education

This editorial for special issue part 1 on the pedagogy of Friedrich Froebel situates the articles in the context of the Global Education Reform Movement. It highlights the contributions made to contemporary research and practice in early childhood education, and  advancing understanding of a Froebelian approach

Posing Unique and Urgent Challenges to Understandings of Quality: Elucidations through a Froebelian lens

This paper reports on findings from a small pilot study undertaken with early years practitioners in Scotland.  The Scottish Government is currently implementing its key election promise of almost doubling the entitlement to publicly funded early learning and childcare (ELC) for all three and four-year old and eligible two-year old children. A key message from the Scottish Government during this period has been that quality is at the heart of the expansion initiative (Scottish Government, 2017b). However, quality can be a contested and an ill understood concept (Moss, 2019). This pilot study, therefore, explored the perspectives of practitioners in Scotland regarding what quality in early years provision entails, particularly in this time of change and expansion. The paper will make three key arguments based on the findings from the study. First, that although quality is a much-used term in Scottish ELC settings, understandings of the term can be subjective, yet powerful and can leave practitioners with more questions than answers. Second, we argue that Fröbelian principles could ameliorate some of the issues regarding quality in Scotland, particularly in terms of combatting discrimination. Finally, we argue that those principles must be accompanied by a social justice lens in which prejudice and stereotypes are recognized, named, and unpacked and action for change taken

‘Why am I in all of these pictures?’ From learning stories to lived stories:The politics of children’s participation rights in documentation practices

Caralyn Blaisdell - ORCID: 0000-0002-5491-7346 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5491-7346In this paper, we report on Phase One of a small action research project that examined how Learning Stories were put into practice at one Scottish nursery. Specifically, the paper looks at young children’s participation rights and how they were enacted within the authorship of the stories. The project used an action research approach in which qualitative data about participants’ current experiences with the stories was used to spark reflection, experimentation and change in documentation practices. Drawing on Phase One data from young children, parents and practitioners at the nursery, our findings illustrate the complex enactment of children’s participation rights, including children’s right to information, freedom of expression and their right to express their views and have those views taken into account. The paper concludes that more work needs to be done in the field of Learning stories to (a) acknowledge the complex political and material considerations at play in the creation of pedagogical documentation and (b) to accommodate children’s own authorship, through flexible, non (or less) written methods.The research was funded by The Froebel Trust: Registered Charity No. 1145128 Company Limited by Guarantee Registered in London No. 7862112.https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2021.2007970aheadofprintaheadofprin

Infants’ emotional and social experiences during and after the transition to early childhood education and care

The socio-emotional experiences of infants during transitions to early childhood education and care (ECEC) and across their first year in these out-of-home contexts are not well known. In an international project across five countries (New Zealand, Finland, Australia, Scotland and the United States), observational data, video of key moments, plus re-probing interviews with parents and teachers concerning 10 infants (six females) aged 5–13 months were collected across the first year of ECEC. An embedded case study design was used to analyse infant experiences from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. Findings indicated low positive affect on infants’ first day of ECEC that increased after the first week and throughout the first year of ECEC. Drop-off periods remained a time of negative emotionality for the first month of ECEC. Over time more positive emotional experiences were evident, with peer interactions fostering positive affect, activeness and involvement, while one-on-one interactions with teachers were an important context for interpersonal engagement and well-being. These findings shed light on the highly charged emotional experience for infants when they transition to institutional care, and how these might be ameliorated in practice.peerReviewe

Fashion and passion: marketing sex to women

Against a backdrop of a ‘pornographication’ of mainstream media and the emergence of a more heavily sexualized culture, women are increasingly targeted as sexual consumers. In the UK, the success of TV shows like Sex and the City and the ‘fashion ‘n’ passion’ of sex emporia like Ann Summers suggests that late twentieth century discourses which foregrounded female pleasure have crystallised in a new form of sexual address to women. This article examines how sex products are being marketed for female consumers, focussing on the websites of sex businesses such as Myla, Babes n Horny, Beecourse, tabooboo and Ann Summers. It asks how a variety of existing discourses – of fashion, consumerism, bodily pleasure and sexuality - are drawn on in the construction of this new market, how they negotiate the dangers and pleasures of sexuality for women, and what they show about the construction of ‘new’ female sexualities.</p