Children's Interests, Inquiries and Identities


Book Description

Children's Interests, Inquiries, and Identities argues that the powerful relationship between interests and informal learning has been under-recognised and undervalued. The book proposes new principles for understanding children's learning.




Children’s Interests, Inquiries and Identities


Book Description

Children’s curiosity about their lives and worlds motivates many interests. Yet, adults often have fixed ideas about what children’s interests are and have been criticised for trivialising children’s interests. This book offers a critical and accessible engagement with research on children’s interests that challenges us to move beyond surface-level understandings. Children’s Interests, Inquiries and Identities argues that the powerful relationship between interests and informal learning has been under-recognised and undervalued. The book proposes new principles for understanding children’s learning. It provides evidence that we need to look beyond the activities or topics children may currently be selecting to find out who and what has stimulated their interests, how we might identify and interpret interests more analytically and deeply, and how we might respond and engage with these in ways that take children’s interests seriously. Moving beyond play-based activities, Helen Hedges explains and illustrates a number of ways by which children’s interests can be interpreted and understood, to get to the heart of what really matters to, and for, children. The book draws on examples from research with children aged under 5 years, and young adults aged 18-25. It also includes a chapter on teachers’ interests. It presents new and original models for interests-based curriculum and sociocultural curriculum and pedagogy for future examination in research and practice. This book demonstrates that leaving behind long-standing, taken-for-granted practices that have influenced understandings of curriculum, pedagogy, learning, and outcomes allows a new perspective of children’s interests to emerge. It will be of interest to researchers, postgraduate students, and practitioners in the early years, parents, and other professionals who work with young children.




Culture, Schooling, and Children's Learning Experiences


Book Description

As countries experience increasing cultural diversity both within and between their borders, contemporary researchers are exploring the connection between culture and children's learning and academic experiences. One important goal is to provide all children with educational experiences that are culturally sensitive, relevant, and effective in helping them reach their maximum potential and preparing them for the future. With over twenty-five contributing authors, this volume investigates the connection between culture and children's schooling and learning experiences from multidisciplinary perspectives, diverse methodologies, and cross-cultural and culture specific approaches. The common thread running through the chapters is the understanding that learning is an activity that takes place within cultural contexts. Together, the chapters highlight the forces that shape children's everyday learning experiences. Core themes address how parental beliefs and cultural ways of learning and problem-solving shape children's learning experiences and social interactions with teachers; the importance of quality early childhood education and playful learning to children's school success and development; and how the complex intersection of cultural variables with forces such as historical injustice, social and educational inequality, economic stability, and political ideologies shape children's learning. The volume honors the experiences of Indigenous, newcomer, first-generation children, and children of underrepresented communities and highlights the vital role that policy makers, teacher educators, schools, and classroom educators play in helping all children reach their academic and social potential.




Starting from the Child? Teaching and Learning in the Foundation Stage, 5e


Book Description

“What a tour de force! Julie’s authoritative, research and practice based, coherent, wise arguments for child-centred practice should be required reading for all primary head teachers. She has been writing editions of this book for over 27 years and she's still right!” Helen Moylett, Early Years Consultant and Writer, Vice President of Early Education, UK “Starting From the Child has evolved and developed in the ever-changing landscape of Early Years Education since it was first published almost 30 years ago and this version is perhaps more important now than ever before. A must – read for every Head, Curriculum lead, Adviser, Inspector and Early Years Educator.” Ruth Swailes, Independent Education Consultant and Curriculum Developer, UK Starting from the Child? is now in its fifth edition and has undergone a substantial rewrite to address significant shifts in teaching in the early years of education. The book's enduring appeal is its principled yet pragmatic approach to being an early childhood educator, and in this new edition the author does not shy away from addressing current sector concerns whilst holding firm to established early years’ principles and values. The book explores the challenges faced by early childhood educators in a climate of ‘adult-insisted’ programmes, and questions whether it is possible to continue to put the child at the centre of all that we do. With her trademark passion, Julie Fisher argues that it is not only possible but essential, and offers strategies to do so in positive, enlightened and inspiring ways. Whilst maintaining the many strengths of previous editions, every chapter is fully up to date with current research and thinking about early years practice and pedagogy. The fifth edition includes: •a new chapter addressing what it means to ‘Start from the Child’ •a new chapter on the design of an early years’ curriculum •a revised chapter emphasising distinctive opportunities arising from learning outdoors •a revised chapter on planning for children's needs rather than curriculum delivery Starting from the Child? will inspire, provoke and renew all those who are committed to working in the field of early childhood education. Julie Fisher is an independent Early Years Adviser, author and trainer. She is also Visiting Professor of Early Childhood Education at Oxford Brookes University, UK. She has been a headteacher of two schools, a university lecturer and a local authority Lead Adviser for Early Years.




Composing Diverse Identities


Book Description

In a climate of increasing emphasis on testing, measurable outcomes, competition and efficiency, the real lives of children and their teachers are often neglected or are too messy and intricate to legislate and quantify. As such, curricula are designed without including the very people that compose the identities of schools. Here Clandinin takes issue with this tendency, bringing together a collection of narratives from seven writers who spent a year in an urban school, exploring the experiences and contributions of children, families, teachers and administrators. These stories show us an alternative way of attending to what counts in schools, shifting away from the school as a business model towards an idea of schools as places to engage citizenship and to attend to the wholeness of people’s lives. Articulating the complex ethical dilemmas and issues that face people and schools every day, this fascinating study puts school life under the microscope raises new questions about who and what education is for.




Social Research for our Times


Book Description

For 50 years, researchers at UCL’s Thomas Coram Research Unit have been undertaking ground-breaking policy-relevant social research. Their main focus has been social issues affecting children, young people and families, and the services provided for them. Social Research for our Times brings together different generations of researchers from the Unit to share some of the most important results of their studies. Two sections focus on the main findings and conclusions from research into children and children services, and on family life, minoritised groups and gender. A third is then devoted to the innovative methods that have been developed and used to undertake research in these complex areas. Running through the book is a key strategic question: what should be the relationship between research and policy? Or put another way, what does ‘policy relevant research’ mean? This perennial question has gained new importance in the post-Covid, post-Brexit world that we have entered, making this text a timely intervention for sharing decades of experience. Taking a unique opportunity to reflect on research context as well as research findings, this book will be of interest to researchers, teachers, students and those involved in policy making both in and beyond dedicated research units, and can be read as a whole or sampled for individual standalone chapters.




Teaching and Researching Listening


Book Description

Widely considered to be a foundational work in the field of listening, Teaching and Researching Listening is among the most recommended textbooks in applied linguistics oral communication courses, and the most cited reference in current research on second language listening development. Known for its comprehensiveness, clarity, insight, and practical applications, this fourth edition has been substantially revised to reflect the latest research in the areas of linguistics, neuroscience, applied technologies, and teaching methodology, with expanded sections on teaching applications and explorations in social research related to listening. This completely revised edition includes: • Detailed overviews of the underlying processes of listening, with additional coverage of decoding processes • Expansion of sections dealing with artificial intelligence (AI), speech recognition, and input enhancement software • Emphasis on research of listening in spoken interaction and cross-cultural communication • Clear templates for instructors and curriculum designers, with an expansive set of practical resources • Guidance in using observational methods for exploring listening in a range of educational and professional contexts • Website support, with presentation slides, infographics, and question banks for each chapter This fourth edition of Teaching and Researching Listening serves as an authoritative and comprehensive survey of issues related to teaching and researching oral communication, providing value for language teachers, educational researchers, instructional designers, interpreters, and other language practitioners.




Funds of Knowledge and Identity Pedagogies for Social Justice


Book Description

This edited volume takes the US-derived concept and praxis of funds of knowledge and applies it globally to critically analyse current education in line with social justice, antiracism, and culturally sustaining pedagogies. Edited by one of the premier international voices for the funds of knowledge approach, and in particular funds of identity theory, chapters foreground first-hand, participatory, research-practice experiences with learners, schools, and local communities. These experiences demonstrate the positive, social-justice inspired pedagogical actions that result in, and reveal, powerful possibilities for a decolonialised, antiracist praxis that aims to eradicate deficit thinking in education. Further, the inclusion of voices that are typically "othered" in the construction and distribution of academic knowledge make this a seminal volume in the field. Ultimately, the volume will be of interest to scholars, students, and researchers working in the sociology of education, psychology of education, and those specifically dealing with antiracism, decolonialism, and equity within education.







Encyclopedia of Teacher Education


Book Description

This encyclopaedia is a dynamic and living reference that student teachers, teacher educators, researchers and professionals in the field of education with an accent on all aspects of teacher education, including: teaching practice; initial teacher education; teacher induction; teacher development; professional learning; teacher education policies; quality assurance; professional knowledge, standards and organisations; teacher ethics; and research on teacher education, among other issues. The Encyclopedia is an authoritative work by a collective of leading world scholars representing different cultures and traditions, the global policy convergence and counter-practices relating to the teacher education profession. The accent will be equally on teaching practice and practitioner knowledge, skills and understanding as well as current research, models and approaches to teacher education.