Contemporary Issues in
Early Childhood

ISSN 1463-9491

Volume 9 Number 1 2008

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

Editorial, pages 1‑2
John Nimmo. Young Children’s Access to Real Life: an examination of the growing boundaries between children in child care and adults in the community, pages 3‑13
Niklas Pramling & Maj Asplund Carlsson. Rhyme and Reason: developing children’s understanding of rhyme, pages 14‑26
Christina Davidson. Talk about Text during Independent Writing: what teacher-student interaction suggests for how we understand students’ competence, pages 27‑35
Martha Lash & Mary McMullen. The Child Care Trilemma: how moral orientations influence the field, pages 36‑48
Kyunghee Moon & Stuart Reifel. Play and Literacy Learning in a Diverse Language Pre-kindergarten Classroom, pages 49‑65
Jonathan Rix, Alice Paige-Smith & Helen Jones. ‘Until the Cows Came Home’: issues for early intervention activities? Parental Perspectives on the Early Years Learning of their Children with Down Syndrome, pages 66‑79

COLLOQUIA
I-Fang Lee. Formations of New Governing Technologies and Productions of New Norms: the dangers of pre-school voucher discourse, pages 80‑82
Chao-Ling Tseng. Understanding the Desirability of English Language Education in Taiwan, pages 83‑86

BOOK REVIEWS VIEW FULL TEXT
Forced to Fail: the paradox of school desegregation (Stephen J. Bankston & Carl L. Caldas), reviewed by Andrea J. Stairs, pages 87‑90
Early Childhood: a guide for students (Tina Bruce, Ed.), reviewed by Cathy Meehan, pages 90‑91 doi:10.2304/ciec.2008.9.1.87

Editorial

doi:10.2304/ciec.2008.9.1.1

VIEW FULL TEXT | BACK TO CONTENTS LIST

For Australia, 2008 marks a new beginning for indigenous children and families. The new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, began Parliament with an apology for the Stolen Generations, those children who were taken forcibly by authorities from their mothers and fathers, families and communities between 1910 and 1970. During this time, approximately 50,000 children, or between 10 and 30% of indigenous children, were removed compulsorily from their families. As part of the apology, the Prime Minister proposed a new partnership, based on closing the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians on life expectancy, educational achievement and employment opportunities. A bipartisan committee is planned to ensure that over ‘the next five years, every indigenous child aged four in remote Aboriginal communities will be enrolled in and attending a proper early childhood education centre and engaged in proper preliteracy and prenumeracy programs’ (Rudd, 2008). The motion of apology by the Prime Minister was supported by the Opposition and received a standing ovation on the first day of the new parliament. While this historic action is a first step and gives much hope for indigenous children, families and communities, caution is needed so that the errors of the Stolen Generations are not repeated.

The contributions in this issue of the journal come from the United Kingdom, the USA, Sweden, Hong Kong and Australia and they tackle issues as diverse as teachers and children working in classrooms to the place of English in Taiwan. The first article by John Nimmo investigates the growing boundaries between children and adults in western societies, particularly those attending child care settings. Through what Nimmo calls ‘real life’ experiences, he shows that children are increasingly divorced from the worlds of adults, to the detriment of not only those immediately affected, but society as a whole. This disquieting position causes us to pause and think about the state of society and the place of children in it.

In ‘Rhyme and Reason: developing children’s understanding of rhyme’, Niklas Pramling & Maj Asplund Carlsson use transcripts of children’s and teachers’ talk to analyse the challenges of teaching children about rhyming words. The teachers use cards with pictures of objects on them, with the name of the object appearing at the bottom of the card. Some of the children have difficulty understanding what the teachers are attempting, possibly because the cards being used have pictures and words, and rhyming relies on the sense of hearing. The teachers too, experience challenges in explaining the concept of rhyming words.

The often tricky issue of meaningful interaction between teachers and children is also the focus of the article by Christina Davidson. Davidson uses Conversation Analysis to provide a detailed breakdown of the competence required by one child when interacting with his teacher, and how the success of minute parts of this interaction can moderate the outcomes that relate to the work at hand and the overall relationship between the teacher and the child.

The quality, affordability and availability of child care are topics that are written about frequently in early childhood education. Martha Lash & Mary McMullen take on these issues and present the ideas of three stakeholders, which they read through the lenses of morality, justice and caring. The insights provided by the teacher, administrator and parent include examples of activism that resulted in tangible and positive outcomes.

Returning to the classroom, Kyunghee Moon & Stuart Reifel focus on play and literacy learning in a pre-kindergarten classroom in the USA that consists of many diverse learners. Transcripts depict teaching and learning approaches and the various understandings that are ascribed to play. Moon & Reifel suggest on the basis of the evidence from this classroom that approaches to play and literacy in similar circumstances may be eclectic and possibly unique to individual teachers.

The final article comes from the United Kingdom and reports parental views about the experiences of their children, who have Down syndrome, with early intervention programs. Several of the parents question the match between the programs and their children, suggesting that including what children like doing and are able to do will bring more enjoyment and success than programs planned according to developmental goals. Rix, Paige-Smith & Jones suggest dialogue with those who design early intervention programs in an effort to make them more appealing and achievable for the participants and their families.

The colloquia raise the use of vouchers in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the popularity of learning English for young children in Taiwan. I-Fang Lee offers some theoretical insight about vouchers and their relation to the constants of early childhood education: quality, affordability and accessibility. While acknowledging that the vouchers make preschool more affordable and more accessible for some families, Lee casts some doubt on their transparency, making a case that freedom to choose has been compromised. Tseng takes on the overwhelming desirability of learning English in Taiwan, linking it to discourses of globalisation, changes in the Taiwanese education system and the global and colonising power of the language of English. He considers some of the reasons that parents want their young children to learn English, including the critical period hypothesis. Tseng postulates about what this great popularity and desire to learn English might mean for Taiwan in the near future, advising that at the very least it deserves to be made problematic by considering the risks associated with reproducing dominant ways of being.

Two book reviews complete this issue. Andrea Stairs from the University of Tennessee undertakes a comprehensive review of Forced to Fail: The paradox of school desegregation by Stephen Bankston and Carl Caldas (Praeger Publishers, 2005); and Cathy Meehan (Canterbury Christ Church University) responds to an edited collection by Tina Bruce about early childhood education in the United Kingdom: Early Childhood: a guide for students (Sage, 2006). We hope you enjoy this issue of the journal.

Sue Grieshaber & Katrina Weier
Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

Reference
Rudd, K. (2008) Sorry statement from Parliament House, Canberra, Australia. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lifematters/stories/2008/2161140.htm

Young Children’s Access to Real Life: an examination of the growing boundaries between children in child care and adults in the community

JOHN NIMMO Child Study and Development Center, University of New Hampshire, Durham, USA

doi:10.2304/ciec.2008.9.1.3

Young children in industrialized societies are increasingly separated from the everyday lives of adults in their community. This article explores the historical and cultural dynamics (and contradictions) of a growing boundary between children, particularly those in child care, and adults without primary care-giving roles. The article proposes that young children’s participation in and contributions to a democratic society are rooted in access to this real life. The active role of children in the formation of social capital should be recognized by educators and policy makers as significant in the development of identity. A framework and strategies for developing meaningful child–adult relations in the context of child care are proposed as the basis for further research and practice.

Rhyme and Reason: developing children’s understanding of rhyme

NIKLAS PRAMLING & MAJ ASPLUND CARLSSON Department of Education, Göteborg University, Sweden

doi:10.2304/ciec.2008.9.1.14

In this study, an extensive episode of teachers working with the intention of developing children’s understanding of rhyme is analysed. The data for the analysis consist of a video-recording of two teachers and seven children (aged 3‑5 years) working with a type of rhyme-card and trying to construct a poem. The analytical interest lies in the opportunities that the teachers provide children to develop a notion of rhyme. The result shows that what a rhyme is to large extent remains implicit in the talk. The critical distinction between a relation between words based on sound (i.e. a rhyme) and a relation between words based on sense also remains unverbalized. This means that while some children may discover this distinction themselves through participating in this activity and encountering a variety of examples, a child who has not understood this difference is not actually helped to do so. Relevance and implications of this study to the practice of preschool are briefly discussed.

Talk about Text during Independent Writing: what teacher–student interaction suggests for how we understand students’ competence

CHRISTINA DAVIDSON School of Learning and Innovation, Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Education, Central Queensland University, Rockhampton, Australia

doi:10.2304/ciec.2008.9.1.27

Talk between students and their teachers is central to learning at school, yet students’ competence is often understood as the outcome of instructional talk rather than essential to successful participation in instructional talk. Curriculum frameworks used to attribute students with levels of competence reflect these understandings. This article employs Conversation Analysis to consider student–teacher interaction during an independent writing lesson. Discussion of their interaction establishes the link between the student’s taken-for-granted knowledge of teacher talk and the teacher’s instruction. The finding suggests the importance of locating students’ competence within the context of instructional talk between teachers and students.

The Child Care Trilemma: how moral orientations influence the field

MARTHA LASH Teaching, Leadership and Curriculum Studies, Kent State University, USA
MARY McMULLEN Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Indiana University, USA

doi:10.2304/ciec.2008.9.1.36

The achievement of quality, affordability and availability – what has been called the ‘trilemma’ of child care – continues to pose relevant, moral challenges for administrators, teachers and parents. These three dimensions of the trilemma are directly related to questions of moral significance related to how the US child care structure affects the families, teachers, and administrators who are intimately involved in the care and education of children. An examination of the trilemma is made to clarify mutually dependent dimensions of this complex system and the inherent moral confounds that accentuate the intra- and interrelated flowing moral tensions. The moral orientations of justice and care are reviewed, not to the exclusion of one another, but to characterize each orientation, the tension between them, and the possibility of moral pluralism. The moral orientations of justice, care and moral pluralism are used as lenses through which to view the perspectives of the three study participants (i.e. a parent, teacher, and administrator) and their exploration, advocacy, and decision making on issues they find salient within the child care trilemma. The perspectives and insights shared by the participants in this study contribute to our understanding about the thinking, decision making and action that surround this inherent moral complexity of the trilemma.

Play and Literacy Learning in a Diverse Language Pre-kindergarten Classroom

KYUNGHEE MOON & STUART REIFEL Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Texas at Austin, USA

doi:10.2304/ciec.2008.9.1.49

This study explores a teacher’s understandings of the role of play and her use of play in literacy learning serving children from diverse language backgrounds. The participants in this study were a public pre-kindergarten teacher and her class. Data were collected from interviews, informal conversations, observations, and self-reflexive notes. The teacher believed that play, as she defined it, has an important role in children’s literacy learning and development, and she used playful activities (concrete, manipulative, fun, hands-on, and creative activities, including games) as potential teaching and learning mediums for literacy learning, within her own unique understanding and use of play. Implications for understanding multicultural and developmentally appropriate literacy practices are discussed in terms of teacher beliefs and understandings.

‘Until the Cows Came Home’: issues for early intervention activities? Parental Perspectives on the Early Years Learning of their Children with Down Syndrome

JONATHAN RIX, ALICE PAIGE-SMITH & HELEN JONES Faculty of Education and Language Studies, The Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom

doi:10.2304/ciec.2008.9.1.66

This article reports the views of parents of children with Down syndrome in the United Kingdom, and those of a parent-researcher, who have recently been or are currently involved in early intervention programmes. It reports on a series of semi-structured interviews with nine parents of eight children with Down syndrome and the reflective engagement of the parent-researcher. The parents reflect upon learning moments and activities with their child that have been most enjoyable, effective and easy to carry out, as well as those that were difficult or a potential cause of conflict. They also prioritise situations that had a positive impact upon their child’s learning. This research adds a parental voice to evidence that suggests a need to place a greater emphasis on learning that comes from the child’s interests and less upon developmental goals, and the positive impact this may have for both the parents and children currently being encouraged to engage in early intervention programmes.

Formations of New Governing Technologies and Productions of New Norms: the dangers of preschool voucher discourse

I-FANG LEE Hong Kong Institute of Education

doi:10.2304/ciec.2008.9.1.80

Contemporary reform discourses have been interlaced with a neo-liberal political economic reasoning system globally and locally. Taking the preschool vouchers in Taiwan and Hong Kong as examples, this article seeks to encourage a shift towards a post-structural perspective of theorizing and analyzing as an alternative to problematize how Milton Friedman’s voucher model constitutes and shapes our construction of freedom to choose, equality, and social justice in education.

Understanding the Desirability of English Language Education in Taiwan

CHAO-LING TSENG Department of Curriculum and Instruction, School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

doi:10.2304/ciec.2008.9.1.83

The popularity and desirability of English language education has become somewhat unbeatable in Taiwan. This article seeks to understand the multiple threads of reasoning systems that come together to constitute and sustain the desirability of English learning. It conceptualizes that language education is more than teaching and learning a new/foreign language. Language is intertwined with the sphere of culture. Thus, it is hoped to encourage an alternative perspective for rethinking English language education in Taiwan.

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