Contemporary Issues in
Early Childhood

ISSN 1463-9491

Volume 9 Number 2 2008

CONTENTS

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

Editorial, pages 92‑93

CALL FOR PAPERS VIEW FULL TEXT doi:10.2304/ciec.2008.9.2.94
‘Policy in Early Childhood’ (Special Issue), page 94

Christina Lim & Jane Torr. Teaching Literacy in English Language in Singaporean Preschools: exploring teachers’ beliefs about what works best, pages 95‑106
Judith Duncan, Carolyn Jones & Margaret Carr. Learning Dispositions and the Role of Mutual Engagement: factors for consideration in educational settings, pages 107‑117
Sue Nichols & Sari Jurvansuu. Partnership in Integrated Early Childhood Services: an analysis of policy framings in education and human services, pages 118‑130
Donna J. Grace. Interpreting Children’s Constructions of their Ethnicity, pages 131‑147
Mehrunnisa Ahmad Ali. Loss of Parenting Self-efficacy Among Immigrant Parents, pages 148‑160
Fathi Ihmeideh, Samer Khasawneh, Safi Mahfouz & Moustafa Khawaldeh. The New Workforce Generation: understanding the problems facing parental involvement in Jordanian kindergartens, pages 161‑172

COLLOQUIA
Jennifer Batycky. Early Childhood Voices: who is really talking?, pages 173‑177
Roshini Vettiveloo. A Critical Enquiry into the Implementation of the Montessori Teaching Method as a First Step Towards Inclusive Practice in Early Childhood Settings Specifically in Developing Countries, pages 178‑181

BOOK REVIEWS VIEW FULL TEXT doi:10.2304/ciec.2008.9.2.182
Identifying Special Needs in the Early Years (Kay Mathieson), reviewed by Joseph Agbenyega, pages 182‑183
Last Child in the Woods: saving our children from nature-deficit disorder (Richard Louv), reviewed by Paula J. Moseley, pages 183‑186
Widening the Circle: the power of inclusive classrooms (Mara Sapon-Shevin), reviewed by Leigh M. O’Brien, pages 186‑188

Editorial

doi:10.2304/ciec.2008.9.2.92

VIEW FULL TEXT | BACK TO CONTENTS LIST

The importance of quality early childhood education has very much been in the spotlight again in Australia. The new (Rudd) government has come to power on a platform that includes an ‘education revolution’ and they have indicated that they believe that the years from birth to eight years of age are particularly important in laying the foundations for learning. Included in his plan, the Prime Minister’s vision is that there will be childcare ‘hubs’ where a range of services will be available for young children and their families. The plan sounds similar to the Education Action Zones that New Labour initiated in the United Kingdom, which included such services as parenting support mechanisms, parenting classes, access to social workers and health services including things like immunisation and maternal and child health services. At the same time, the government has indicated a commitment to providing education systems that are accountable to parents and a world-class education that will ensure that Australian children are able to achieve outcomes commensurate with their international counterparts. Implicit in this is that a national curriculum is needed to define national content that all children in Australia will experience, including agreement on what constitutes the ‘basics’ of literacy and numeracy, which are to be tested and will act as benchmarks of performance that will be accepted as minimum performance standards for all students.

In this issue of Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, the articles discuss a range of topics that are of considerable interest to early childhood educators around the world.

The first article, by Christina Lim & Jane Torr, examines ‘Teaching Literacy in English Language in Singaporean Preschools: exploring teachers’ beliefs about what works best’. They describe how Singaporean preschool teachers prepare their young students for an education that is primarily conducted in English. Lim & Torr conducted interviews with eight teachers to isolate the beliefs and attitudes specific teachers held in relation to young children’s attainment of English literacy skills. Their findings are documented in this article.

Judith Duncan, Carolyn Jones & Margaret Carr’s article, ‘Learning Dispositions and the Role of Mutual Engagement: factors for consideration in educational settings’, describes an emerging theoretical framework for examining relationships between learning dispositions and learning architecture. The article discusses domains of learning dispositions – resilience, reciprocity and imagination – in relation to the structures and processes of early childhood education settings and new entrant classrooms.

Sue Nichols & Sari Jurvansuu’s article is titled ‘Partnership in Integrated Early Childhood Services: an analysis of policy framings in education and human services’.

Their article documents a study undertaken into the first year of operation of integrated children’s centres in South Australia. As part of this study, a policy analysis in the area of education and human services (including health) was conducted. Nichols & Jurvansuu propose that the terms within which policies frame partnership, families and services should be the subject of debate, and claim that dialogue should involve those practitioners whose role it is to make integration work on the ground.

Donna J. Grace draws upon post-structural and post-colonial theories in her article ‘Interpreting Children’s Constructions of Their Ethnicity’. The article documents a qualitative study that examined how five classes of first-grade children in Florida and Hawaii talked about their ethnicities in a video pen pal project. The study finds that the children in the five different schools talked about their ethnicities in different ways: either ethnicity only, hyphenated ethnic-national identity, or national identity only.

Mehrunnisa Ali discusses how the early settlement experiences of immigrant parents of young children arriving in Canada make it difficult for them to meet the physiological, social and emotional needs of their young children. Ali’s article, ‘Loss of Parenting Self-efficacy among Immigrant Parents’, claims that unless this loss of parenting self-efficacy is disrupted, it will perpetuate inequitable and unjust relations among racialized and white populations in Canada.

The study conducted by Fathi Ihmeideh, Samer Khasawneh, Safi Mahfouz & Moustafa Khawaldeh in their article ‘The New Workforce Generation: understanding the problems facing parental involvement in Jordanian kindergartens’ aimed to investigate the problems facing parental involvement in Jordanian kindergartens from the parents’ perspectives. A questionnaire was administered to 297 parents of kindergarten children from various kindergartens in Amman, and the authors discuss the salient issues that arose out of their analysis of the results.

We have two colloquia in this issue. In the first, Jennifer Batycky asks that we consider children’s voices when planning for early childhood education and, in the second, Roshini Vettiveloo discusses the ways in which Montessori education is enacted in Malaysia.

Finally, we have three new book reviews which deal with the topics of diversity, special needs and reconnecting children with nature.

Nicola J. Yelland & Rebecca Beris
School of Education, Victoria University, Australia

Teaching Literacy in English Language in Singaporean Preschools: exploring teachers’ beliefs about what works best

CHRISTINA LIM National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
JANE TORR Institute of Early Childhood, Macquarie University, Australia

doi:10.2304/ciec.2008.9.2.95

Singaporean preschool teachers are responsible for preparing their young students for a formal education that is predominantly conducted in English. What these teachers believe about how young children learn English literacy skills is important to study, especially when much of the research is situated in very different contexts. Talking to teachers about their roles is a way of examining interpretations of ‘effective’ teaching and learning in terms of actual literacy pedagogy. Three broad categories were discernible in this exploratory study of interviews with eight teachers, clustering around their concepts of the child as learner, their construction of themselves as active facilitators of children’s learning, and the impact of parental pressures on their decision making.

Learning Dispositions and the Role of Mutual Engagement: factors for consideration in educational settings

JUDITH DUNCAN Children’s Issues Centre, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
CAROLYN JONES & MARGARET CARR Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

doi:10.2304/ciec.2008.9.2.107

This article describes an emerging theoretical framework for examining relationships between learning dispositions and learning architecture. Three domains of learning dispositions – resilience, reciprocity and imagination – are discussed in relation to the structures and processes of early childhood education settings and new entrant classrooms. This framework was developed during the analysis of the data collected for the Dispositions in Social Context project, funded by the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund and headed by Anne B. Smith and Margaret Carr. This article includes examples from this research project, which explored the relationship between learning architecture and the dispositions of children within these education contexts.

Partnership in Integrated Early Childhood Services: an analysis of policy framings in education and human services

SUE NICHOLS & SARI JURVANSUU Hawke Institute for Sustainable Societies, University of South Australia, Magill, Australia

doi:10.2304/ciec.2008.9.2.118

There is currently movement internationally towards the integration of services for young children and their families, incorporating childcare, education, health and family support. Shifting service provision towards partnership between services, and between these services and families, has been the subject of policy formation at various levels. As part of a study into the first year of operation of integrated children’s centres in South Australia, a policy analysis was undertaken surveying policies in two domains: education on the one hand and human services (incorporating health) on the other. This analysis found different policy framings of partnership operating in the two domains. Additionally, the policy landscape is layered with old and new constructions of the relationship between families and services. The authors argue that the terms within which policies frame partnership, families and services should be the subject of debate and also dialogue involving those practitioners whose role it is to make integration work on the ground.

Interpreting Children’s Constructions of their Ethnicity

DONNA J. GRACE University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, USA

doi:10.2304/ciec.2008.9.2.131

Drawing upon post-structural and post-colonial theories, this study is an investigation into the ways in which five classes of first-grade children (six and seven year olds) in Florida and Hawaii talked about their ethnicities in a video pen pal project. The qualitative methods utilized in this research were participant observation, interviews, and videotaping. The resulting analysis notes that the children in the five different schools talked about their ethnicities differently (ethnicity only, hyphenated ethnic-national identity, or national identity only). Four themes emerge from the analysis related to multicultural education, real-life racism, national identity, and shifting subjectivities. Emphasized in the analysis and interpretation is the importance of situating children’s talk about ethnicity within local contexts, acknowledging the multiple and fluid nature of individual subjectivities, and recognizing their location within ideological discourses.

Loss of Parenting Self-efficacy among Immigrant Parents

MEHRUNNISA AHMAD ALI School of Early Childhood Education, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada

doi:10.2304/ciec.2008.9.2.148

The early settlement experiences of immigrant parents of young children arriving in Canada make it difficult for them to meet their young children’s physiological, social and emotional needs, or to help them navigate the structures of their new environment. They lose their sense of self-efficacy in their parenting role in the face of rapid reduction in their social, emotional, cultural and financial resources. This loss of parenting self-efficacy is a consequence of systemic constraints on their ability to exercise agency in raising their children and, unless disrupted, it will perpetuate inequitable and unjust relations among racialized and white populations in Canada.

The New Workforce Generation: understanding the problems facing parental involvement in Jordanian kindergartens

FATHI IHMEIDEH Queen Rania Faculty for Childhood, The Hashemite University, Zarqa, Jordan
SAMER KHASAWNEH Faculty of Educational Sciences, The Hashemite University, Zarqa, Jordan
SAFI MAHFOUZ Faculty of Educational Sciences, UNRWA University, Amman, Jordan
MOUSTAFA KHAWALDEH Queen Rania Faculty for Childhood, The Hashemite University, Zarqa, Jordan

doi:10.2304/ciec.2008.9.2.161

This study aimed to investigate the problems facing parental involvement in Jordanian kindergartens from the parents’ perspectives. A 36-item questionnaire that addressed five domains was designed by the researchers and distributed among the study participants. The study sample consisted of 297 parents of kindergarten children from various kindergartens in Amman. The results reveal that the main problem facing parental involvement was related to the kindergarten principals, followed by problems related to the kindergarten teachers, while the kindergarten facilities were the least serious problem. Also, the results indicate that there were statistically significant differences only with problems related to the kindergarten instructional program domain with regard to the parents’ gender, while there were no differences attributed to the educational and economic levels of the parents. Based on these findings the researchers address a number of suggestions and recommendations for enhancing parental involvement in Jordanian kindergartens.

Early Childhood Voices: who is really talking?

JENNIFER BATYCKY University of Calgary, Canada

doi:10.2304/ciec.2008.9.2.173

The early childhood classroom is a space filled with contradictions. While a primary classroom is full of possibility, there exists a quiet narrative that we take for granted which serves to silence the voices of both children and teachers. This narrative is powerful in the space it occupies and within these contexts it manifests itself in a variety of ways. The goal of this article is to highlight some of the ways in which we are silenced and perhaps offer the courage to reframe our daily lives in the early childhood context. The article is inspired from a critical theory perspective, taking into consideration the issues related to power and oppression. The author believes these themes are real and very alive in our classrooms and it serves us as teachers to look critically at our circumstances so that we may begin to reclaim our voices. To deny that themes of oppression exist in our spaces is to further deny our voices, as teachers, and of those of our youngest learners. This article examines the following themes of classroom spaces and curriculum. The author observes that these themes play themselves out in her own classroom and other early childhood settings, which she believes serve to silence the voices of those who live in these spaces.

A Critical Enquiry into the Implementation of the Montessori Teaching Method as a First Step towards Inclusive Practice in Early Childhood Settings Specifically in Developing Countries

ROSHINI VETTIVELOO University of Southern Queensland, Australia

doi:10.2304/ciec.2008.9.2.178

The analysis was carried out as part of a master’s thesis and it aimed to analyse the extent to which the Montessori educational philosophy and teaching method incorporated inclusive educational qualities. The Montessori Method was first developed for children who were disadvantaged and considered ‘idiots’, in the slums of Italy’s San Lorenzo. With the usage of her didactic materials, Maria Montessori proved that the children in question were indeed educable given the correct type of instruction. The focus of this article is on the inclusive qualities embedded within the Montessori philosophy and teaching method, which can be reason enough for it to be adopted by developing countries that have limited budgets/funding for the purpose of special education. This method could prove to be an easy alternative for the immediate implementation of early childhood inclusive education for countries such as Malaysia which do not yet possess specific legislation governing special education.

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