Internationally, documentation has gained importance in institutional contexts of early childhood during the last 20 years. This edited volume illuminates different practices and aspects of documentation in early childhood and provides theoretically informed analytical perspectives on documentation in childhood institutions. Whilst drawing on different national and early service contexts, the edited volume explores the ways in which documentation may be consequential in childhood and in the practices of early childhood professionals. The different chapters examine assessment and normativity in documentation, children’s participation in it, and the impact of documentation on professionalism. The edited volume is targeted to students, researchers and professionals in the field of education and social sciences.
Pedagogical documentation is a vital method of assessing and observing young children, and is a practice that enables practitioners, families and children to learn alongside each other. This book draws on the projects and experiences of senior researchers from nations including Australia, Canada, Sweden, Singapore, the UK and the USA to highlight multiple approaches to pedagogical documentation. Topics explored include: using video in pedagogical documentation making the most of outdoor learning environments developing pedagogical documentation within curriculum frameworks the relationship with Early Years transitions the potential of pedagogical documentation for leadership enactment. The book offers guidance, support and inspiration to practitioners and researchers on how to implement meaningful and sustainable child-focused observation in early years contexts.
Documentation in early childhood education is typically seen as a means to enhance the quality of care and education, and as a way to take account of the child’s view. Assessment and Documentation in Early Childhood Education considers the increasing trend towards systematic child documentation especially in early childhood institutions. The authors present ways in which assessment and evaluation is done sometimes explicitly but more often implicitly in these practices, and explore its means, aims, forms, and functions. They also examine the rationalities of child documentation from the perspective of professional practice and professionalism and suggest that documentation and assessment practices can weaken and constrain but also empower and strengthen teachers, children and parents. Topics explored include: Different forms of documentation and assessment Documentation and listening to the children Dilemmas of assessment and documentation Participation by children Involvement of parents This timely book will be appealing for those studying in the field of early childhood education, teacher education, special education, general education, social work, counselling, psychology, sociology, childhood studies, and family studies.
This book challenges received wisdom and the tendency to reduce philosophical issues of value to purely technical issues of measurement and management.
Documentation and Inquiry in the Early Childhood Classroom explores teacher inquiry, reflection, and research and the documentation of these processes within a variety of school sites and models. Compiling underrepresented inquiry stories from practicing teachers and administrators in early childhood (0–5) classrooms in the San Francisco Bay Area, this book highlights the power of the community in supporting professional development for early childhood educators and the education of young children. Important elements addressed include teacher learning, children’s curricula, parent and community communication, and equity and social justice for teachers, children, and families.
This book identifies the gaps needing to be bridged to achieve a more inclusive and ‘just’ early childhood education, in relation to class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race, disabilities and age, and explores various ways of bridging these gaps.
Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.
Early childhood education and care has been a political priority in England since 1997, when government finally turned its attention to this long-neglected area. Public funding has increased, policy initiatives have proliferated and at each general election political parties aim to outbid each other in their offer to families. Transforming Early Childhood in England: Towards a Democratic Education argues that, despite this attention, the system of early childhood services remains flawed and dysfunctional. National discourse is dominated by the cost and availability of childcare at the expense of holistic education, while a hotchpotch of fragmented provision staffed by a devalued workforce struggles with a culture of targets and measurement. With such deep-rooted problems, early childhood education and care in England is beyond minor improvements. In the context of austerity measures affecting many young families, transformative change is urgent.
This book describes the use of data systems in early childhood settings (birth to eight years) for the purposes of assessment, evaluation and curriculum planning. It presents an international collection of research examining ways in which teachers and researchers have revisited notions of what constitutes effective assessment, revised ways in which they assess children’s learning and development and use the knowledge gained for curriculum planning. It offers insights into contemporary research on how teachers and children are engaging with data systems as part of effective assessment and how these approaches influence practice. This book presents recent theorizing and examples of research which have investigated innovative approaches to assessment using data systems in early years settings. It represents both early childhood and junior primary contexts and includes research which focusses on teachers’ perspectives and reflections on use of data systems. It also examines research which reflects on what children gain from being involved in these data systems.
This work discusses the complexity of child development. It provides a critique of alternative perspectives of research and development and shows how to do research with the concepts of cultural-historical theory.
