Contemporary Issues in
Early Childhood

ISSN 1463-9491

Volume 1 Number 3 2000

CONTENTS

[click on author's name for abstract and full text]
 

Editorial, pages 239–240
Patrick Hughes & Glenda MacNaughton. Consensus, Dissensus or Community: the politics of parent involvement in early childhood education, pages 241–258
Jennifer Sumsion. Oppositional Discourses: deconstructing responses to investigations of male early childhood educators, pages 259–275
Cheryl Robert. Distant Places, Diverse Spaces: early childhood professional development in isolated locations, pages 277–286
Jan White & Chris Gordon. There’s a Bug in My Ear: value adding through authentic interview experience, pages 287–298
Carmel M. Diezmann & James J. Watters. Identifying and Supporting Spatial Intelligence in Young Children, pages 299–313
Susan Nichols. Unsettling the Bedtime Story: parents’ reports of home literacy practices, pages 315–328
COLLOQUIA
Angela Anderson. Making Art with Children – much more than ‘doing it properly’: a response to Felicity McArdle, pages 329–332
Nola Alloway. Exploring Boys’ Literacy Performance at School: incorporating and transcending gender, pages 333–337
Abigail Sawyer. Pre-school Teachers in Primary Schools: stories from the field, pages 339–344
BOOK REVIEWS
Intersections, Feminisms/Early Childhoods (Mary E. Hauser & Janice A. Jipson, eds), reviewed by Joanne Ailwood,
pages 345–347 VIEW FULL TEXT
Promoting Children’s Learning from Birth to Five: developing the new early childhood professional (Angela Anning & Ann Edwards), reviewed by Anna Bower, pages 347–349 VIEW FULL TEXT
The Myth of the First Three Years: a new understanding of early brain development and lifelong learning (John T. Bruer), reviewed by Glenn L. DeVoogd, pages 349–352 VIEW FULL TEXT
Acknowledgements, Volume 1, page 353 VIEW FULL TEXT

Editorial

Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood (CIEC) now has over five thousand registered subscribers worldwide. This is not only an indication of a widespread interest in the views of early childhood educators who offer other ways of examining practices and theory, but also suggests the important ways in which information and communication technologies (ICT) can attract interested people to a website so that they are able to read about alternative perspectives and communicate with us and others in an interactive dialogue.

Interest in early childhood education was evidenced in 1998 when the OECD launched the Thematic Review of Early Childhood Education that was to include profiles from 12 countries. The review was initiated because the provision of care and education of young children was viewed as a necessary and important part of ensuring the equal access of women to the labour market and additionally that the early years were viewed as the foundation necessary for later successful educational experiences. The OECD also indicated that they believed that if early childhood education was supported with effective fiscal, social and employment strategies that supported parents and communities, it would ensure that all children received an equitable start in their lives and consequently would exert a major influence on social integration. To date three reports and commentaries are available on the OECD website (www.oecd.org) and supplemented with country notes which are the summarised views of a number of external reviewers. These are indeed interesting reading and provide a thorough examination of the different forms of care and education that young children experience in each country in the first five years of their lives. Each review represents a broad, holistic view of the country in question. The reviewers have studied policy, programmes and provision in the years from birth to the start of compulsory schooling, which of course varies from country to country. Consideration is given to the roles of families, communities and other environmental influences on children’s early learning and development. One of the fundamental issues of the review was to investigate concerns about quality, access and equity with a focus on policy related to regulatory devices, staffing, programme content and implementation, family involvement and financial concerns. It is hoped that the remaining nine reports and summations will be available as the year progresses. After attending a recent meeting here in Australia there is no doubt that the background reports will stimulate some interesting discussion both within and between contexts and countries.

The theme of Research Theory and Practice Around the World was continued in the recent tenth meeting of the Reconceptualizing Early Childhood Curriculum conference in Brisbane, Australia. The interdisciplinary conference is a forum for pursuing alternative perspectives in early childhood education and provides an opportunity for teachers, students, researchers, advocates, and other practitioners to participate in conversations about emerging issues, contradictions and possibilities for early childhood workers and families. This year the conference was organised around three focal points: Collaborations, communities and the profession; Reading the child, reading the curriculum; and Practices and possibilities. Participants from Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Canada engaged in, discussed and responded to a variety of perspectives. The next meeting is to be held in New York City in the Fall of 2001.

These two events serve to illustrate the dynamic nature of the discipline and are supplemented by numerous others that are occurring across the world. We hope that this journal will continue to be a space where those who are concerned about young children, their families and communities can discuss such issues with frankness and open minds and look forward to more stimulating conversations in the form of articles, colloquia and discussions within the format of the journal
Nicola Yelland & Susan Grieshaber
Editors

Consensus, Dissensus or Community: the politics of parent involvement in early childhood education

PATRICK HUGHES Deakin University, Geelong, Australia
GLENDA MACNAUGHTON University of Melbourne, Parkeville, Australia

Parents appear in early childhood texts and policy documents within discourses that position them as ‘others’, preventing the creation of equitable parent–staff relationships. This article draws on discussions with early childhood staff to explore the implications of ‘othering’ parents and it canvasses two contrasting communication strategies through which to challenge this ‘othering’. The first strategy derives from Habermas’s modernist notion of communicative consensus; the second from Lyotard’s postmodern notion of emancipatory dissensus.

Oppositional Discourses: deconstructing responses to investigations of male early childhood educators

JENNIFER SUMSION Macquarie University, North Ryde, Australia

This reflective account begins with verses representing the multiplicity of frequently oppositional responses generated by the author’s investigations of the perceptions, experiences and contributions of male early childhood educators. Discourses underpinning these responses are identified. They include (1) male as victim; (2) non-critical advocacy for an increased male presence in early childhood education; (3) critiques of interpretive research; (4) feminist perspectives; and (5) the ‘traditional’ early childhood stance. Each of these discourses is then briefly deconstructed to identify contested assumptions about the participation of men in the early childhood sector and to provide a meta-view of the key issues involved. It is argued that prevailing discourses ignore the voices of children and constrain conceptualisations of possible contributions by male early childhood educators. The article concludes with a call for more inclusive and more flexible discursive spaces in which to explore the potential implications of the involvement of men in early childhood education.

Distant Places, Diverse Spaces: early childhood professional development in isolated locations

CHERYL ROBERT Central Queensland University, North Rockhampton, Australia

This article raises some questions about the appropriateness and value of the dominant models of professional development for early childhood professionals in rural areas. The issues raised in this article draw on both research conducted into the experiences of professional development of a group of early childhood professionals residing outside the main urban areas in Queensland, and the author’s experiences in the conducting of these activities. The discussion raises questions about rural identity, the usefulness of professional development in a ‘one size fits all’ model and how this might position rurally located professionals as being needy, disadvantaged, deficit and to a large extent powerless in their own professional development choices. The article concludes that whilst these professionals identify themselves and are treated as ‘victims of isolation’, their capacity to take charge of their own professional development is constrained. The research findings and the issues raised suggest the need for further research, particularly into alternative models of professional development that are context sensitive and interact with issues of professional identity and rurality.

There’s a Bug in My Ear: value adding through authentic interview experience

JAN WHITE & CHRIS GORDON Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, Australia

This article describes an effective method for training early childhood teacher education students in interview skills as a preparation for future employment interviews. The method situates learning within a near authentic experience using an interactive coaching model. Students experienced the interview situation in a simulated environment, which tried to model actual employment interviews. Students adopted the roles of interviewer, interviewee, coach and observer. As these roles were rotated, students’ understanding of interview processes and interview skills were steadily developed to the point where the majority of the students demonstrated high quality interview skills. The inclusion of an interactive coaching facility and the provision of video feedback provided another facet that improved the efficiency of the training model. Outcomes in terms of student evaluations and success at subsequent employment interviews suggested that the methodology was highly effective in enhancing the skills of all students involved.

Identifying and Supporting Spatial Intelligence in Young Children

CARMEL M. DIEZMANN & JAMES J. WATTERS Queensland University of Technology, Kelvin Grove, Australia

Intelligence is a concept related to behaviours that are valued in a social and cultural context. Since the establishment of formalised education for Westernised industrial society, education has focused on the development of literacy and numeracy skills and has acknowledged those areas as important in formal education. Intelligence, hence, has been valued in those who are highly literate and numerate. However, a careful analysis of highly creative people in the area of mathematics and science, and recognition of the impact of technology in an Information Age suggests that other behaviours broadly identified as spatial intelligence are significant areas of human capability. Spatial intelligence has been highlighted in recent years though the work of Howard Gardner. However, interpretations of this work have tended to emphasise the role of spatial intelligence in artistic domains and ignored the seminal contribution that spatial intelligence plays in mathematical and scientific domains. The article explores spatial intelligence in the sciences from a variety of perspectives, including a neuropsychological perspective, and uses Gardner’s developmental trajectory of intelligence to explore how to facilitate the development of spatial intelligence. We challenge practitioners to examine their practices in educational settings and reflect on the extent to which they provide opportunities for children to demonstrate and develop their spatial intelligence.

Unsettling the Bedtime Story: parents’ reports of home literacy practices

SUSAN NICHOLS University of South Australia, Underdale, Australia

This interview-based study on middle-class Australian parents’ involvement in young children’s literacy found that reading to children (particularly in the pre-school years) is a routine part of family life, a task shared between mothers and fathers. However, there were patterns of gender difference in the accounts. Mothers were more likely than fathers to emphasise the importance of the child’s early exposure to books. They were also often reported to take a supervisory role in relation to their partner’s story reading. Men were more likely to undertake reading at bedtime than at any other time and also more likely to report using various strategies to shorten the time spent on story reading. Fathers reading to sons appeared to take on a special significance related to masculine bonding and modelling.

Making Art with Children – much more than ‘doing it properly’: a response to Felicity McArdle

ANGELA ANDERSON University of South Australia, Magill, Australia

In this colloquium, the author responds to Felicity McArdle’s discussion paper, ‘Art and Young Children’ (Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, vol. 1, no. 1, pages 101–104). The colloquium paraphrases Felicity McArdle’s article, examining the ‘hidden curricula’ of her discourse and suggesting alternate views that refocus attention on the child rather than the adult.

Exploring Boys’ Literacy Performance at School: incorporating and transcending gender

NOLA ALLOWAY James Cook University, Townsville, Australia

This colloquium paper focuses on government-funded projects on boys’ literacy performance in Australian schools. It begins by outlining the socio-political context in which the work was undertaken and briefly references the socially critical model that supported the development of professional development and teaching units. The paper draws on work completed and work in progress in highlighting dilemmas inherent in working in this field. The central argument is that it is necessary, but insufficient, to continue discussing gender’s association with school literacy outcomes.

Pre-school Teachers in Primary Schools: stories from the field

ABIGAIL SAWYER Toowong State School, Australia

Continuity and collaboration between preschool and primary programmes is frequently impeded by the different approaches to teaching snd learning espoused by teachers in each setting. This article discusses a research project investigating the experiences of preschool teachers working in primary schools in order to consider the meanings of teacher practice across settings and ways in which teachers are able to accommodate alternative perspectives into their own teaching.

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