Gillian Busch

Repositioning early childhood leadership as action and activism

ABSTRACT Robust leadership is increasingly recognised as a critical element of healthy professions, yet some research suggests that early childhood practitioners do not readily identify with the concept of leadership. This article explores some dimensions of leadership in early childhood and how it is understood and practised in Australian early childhood contexts. The analysis suggests that the dominant images of leadership in the wider community and the discourses of early childhood, together with increasing control of the profession through mandated curriculum and auditing and the rise of corporate childcare and commodified children’s services, militate against the realisation of a strong leadership identity. Resources emerging from feminist work in the area of leadership, ethics and professionalism provide new opportunities to reconceptualise leadership through activism and engagement. Such a shift has implications for how we might reconstruct the professional preparation of early childhood teachers through projects of action and activism. The article concludes with an outline of a pilot project involving pre‐service teachers in a project of community engagement in which aspects of a ‘new leadership’ are practised. RÉSUMÉ: Une notion solide de la direction est de plus en plus reconnue comme une dimension professionnelle essentielle, toutefois des études indiquent que les praticiens de la petite enfance ne la saisissent pas encore vraiment. Cet article porte sur quelques aspects de cette notion dans le champ de la petite enfance et sur la façon dont elle est comprise et mise en pratique dans les services préscolaires australiens. L’analyse montre que la représentation dominante, au niveau de la communauté comme dans le discours sur la petite enfance, avec l’augmentation du contrôle de la profession par le curriculum et les audits, fait obstacle à la mise en oeuvre d’une définition forte de cette notion de direction. Les apports des travaux féministes dans ce champ et dans celui de l’éthique et du professionnalisme offrent de nouvelles occasions pour reconceptualiser cette notion à travers celles d’activisme et d’engagement. Le changement de perspectives apporté a des implications sur la façon dont nous pourrions reconstruire la formation professionnelle des praticiens de la petite enfance grâce à des projets d’action et à l’activisme. L’article conclut avec la présentation d’une étude pilote impliquant des professionnels en formation dans un projet qui engage la communauté et dans lequel des aspects d’une ‘nouvelle direction’ sont mis en pratique. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG: Belastbare Leitung wird zunehmend als wesentliches Element der Gesundheitsberufe erkannt, wenn auch Forschung darauf hindeutet, dass frühpädagogische PraktikerInnen sich nicht allzu bereitwillig mit dem Konzept von Führung identifizieren. Dies Papier untersucht einige Dimension von Führung im frühpädagogischen Bereich und wie diese in Australien auf diesem Gebiet verstanden und praktiziert werden. Die Analyse legt nahe, dass die vorherrschenden Bilder von Führung in der weiteren Gemeinschaft und im Diskurs über frühe Kindheit in Verbindung mit einer zunehmenden Kontrolle des Berufs über Anordnungen von Curriculum und Überprüfungen, mit dem Anwachsen von Unternehmenskindertagesstätten sowie kommerzialisierter Dienstleistungsangebote einer Realisierung von starker Leitungs‐ und Führungsidentität widerstreiten. Ressourcen aus feministischer Arbeit auf dem Gebiet von Führung und Leitung, Ethik und Professionalismus eröffnen neue Möglichkeiten, durch Handeln und Engagement eine Neukonzeptualisierung von Leitung und Führung zu leisten. Eine solche Veränderung hat Implikationen dafür, wie die professionelle Vorbereitung frühpädagogischer Fachkräfte über Handlungsprojekte neu konstruiert werden kann. Das Papier schließt mit der Kurzdarstellung eines Pilotprojektes mit in Ausbildung befindlichen Fachkräften im Rahmen eines Projektes zu gesellschaftlichem Engagement, in welchem Aspekte einer “neuen Leitung und Führung’ praktiziert werden. RESUMEN: Un sólido y fuerte sentido de liderazgo es reconocido cada vez mas como un elemento crítico en profesiones saludables, sin embargo algunas investigaciones sugieren que los profesionales de la temprana edad no se identifican fácilmente con el concepto de liderazgo. Este documento explora algunas de las dimensiones del liderazgo en la infancia y como es entendido y practicado en los contextos de la temprana edad Australianos. El análisis sugiere que las imágenes dominantes de liderazgo en esta amplia comunidad, y los tratados de temprana edad junto con el creciente control a través de currículos de mandato, auditorías y el incremento del cuidado infantil corporativo y servicios infantiles comercializados van en contra de la comprensión de una fuerte identidad de liderazgo. Los recursos que emergen de los trabajos feministas en el área del liderazgo, ética y profesionalismo, ofrecen nuevas oportunidades para visualizar este a través de activismo y compromiso. Semejante cambio ha dado como resultado implicaciones acerca de cómo debemos reconstruir la preparación profesional para profesores de la temprana edad a través de proyectos de acción y activismo. El documento concluye con un resumen de un proyecto piloto que involucra a profesores pre‐servicio en un proyecto de participación comunitaria en el cual los aspectos de ‘nuevo liderazgo’ son practicados.

Will, You’ve Got to Share: Disputes during Family Mealtime

Purpose – The overall aim of the chapter is to explore how disputes between family members are accomplished and how the actions of copresent members (the mother and elder brother) contribute to the unfolding dispute. Methodology – Selected from video recordings of the family breakfast, three extended sequences of mealtime talk were transcribed using the Jeffersonian system and analyzed using the analytic resources of conversation analysis and ethnomethodology. Findings – This analysis establishes how both the mother and elder sibling intervene in matters to do with who has access to some bookclub brochures. Appeals to rules such as “you’ve got to share” are used by the mother to manage the local issue of the dispute. In intervening to resolve and settle disputes, the mother makes visible particular moral orders, such as sharing. Intervention is accomplished through directions, increasing physical proximity to the dispute, topic shift, and physical intervention in the dispute, such as gently removing a childs hand from the brochures. Justifications for sharing proffered by the mother that work to establish an alignment with one child are challenged by the other sibling, thus contributing to an escalation of the dispute. Also explicated is how an older sibling buys into the dispute, making visible his view about how sharing is accomplished; that is, you “just cope with it.” Practical implications – This chapter has some practical implications for adults who interact with children (teachers, parents) highlighting that in some way, adults, through their actions may contribute to the continuation of a dispute and second, how adult attempts to settle or end a dispute may result only in a temporary settlement rather than a cessation of the dispute. Value of chapter – The chapter contributes understandings about how family members manage disputes interactionally and how social and moral orders are accomplished during family mealtime. Additionally, it shows how some disputes are temporarily settled and connected across a section of action rather than ended.

Understanding and Influencing Research with Children

Black and Busch open a thoughtful dialogue about research with children, research relationships and the status and location of children in research. Particular attention is given to ethical motivations and considerations and children’s visibility in research and broader society. The chapter explores how researcher values and ethical commitments position children, determine their visibility and influence wider cultures of listening to children. The challenges and fruitfulness of research with children are discussed alongside researcher experiences and highlight the importance of ongoing conversations within research communities.

How Families Use Video Communication Technologies During Intergenerational Skype Sessions

Geographical distances between family members have propelled the use of video communication technologies (e.g., Skype, FaceTime) to maintain and facilitate family relationships. Skype enables access to a visual on the screen, and the use of wireless technology (WiFi) facilitates Skype sessions to be mobile and to occur in various spaces in the family home. This chapter examines an extended sequence of talk during a Skype session between young children, their mother, and grandparents. Interactions were video-recorded and then transcribed using the Jeffersonian system. Analysis of the sequences establishes first how children and adults manage the affordances of the Skype technology to accomplish the social activity and, second, how the adults support the children’s interaction and how prosody and gesture accomplish the interaction. This chapter contributes understandings of how social orders (Unravelling the fabric of social order in block area. In Hester S, Francis D (eds) Local educational order: ethnomethodological studies of knowledge in action. John Benjamins Pub. Co., Amsterdam, pp 91–140, 2000) are assembled during family Skype sessions.

“What Does It Say About It?”: Doing Reading and Doing Writing as Part of Family Mealtime

How children acquire knowledge about and use written language has been examined in a range of disciplines or fields. While formal education settings provide instruction for children to develop literacy, support occurs during everyday activities in the family home. This chapter examines a number of extended sequences of talk during one breakfast of an Australian family comprising the mother and the father and their five children. The interactions were video recorded and then transcribed using conversation analysis conventions. This chapter focuses on how the family members deploy interactional resources to support access to the text of a bookclub brochure, assess the appropriateness of the books for individual family members, and fill in the forms to order books. Analysis shows how the multiparty context and the incipient agenda of purchasing a book from the bookclub brochure are consequential for when and how literacy events are accomplished. Second, analysis shows how the provision of assistance with literacy practices is accomplished interactionally. Also identified in the analysis is the way in which literacy events happen ‘on the hop’ with a shifting in and out of other activities. The chapter contributes understandings about how family members accomplish reading and writing interactionally during an ordinary everyday family occasion, having breakfast.

Children’s transitions to school: ‘so what about the parents’? or ‘so, what about the parents’?

ABSTRACT Children progress through a number of life transitions and each is a pivotal point of development and growth for them, their parents and family members. Through a review of the literature, the Bioecological Model will be used to frame childhood transitions as highly social, contextualised and political. This paper will assert that governments, schools and educators have an increased role in supporting parents with their changing roles, responsibilities and relationships as their child transitions to school and that schools need to provide space for parents to share their own transition to school narratives in order to better understand the effect these stories may have on the transition process for them and their children. Finally, schools and systems will be challenged to engage in a strengths-based approach to support parents at this pivotal time in their own and their child’s growth and development and call for increased research to identify ways in which this can occur within respectful, collaborative and agentic relationships.

From Fledgling Manoeuvres to Methodological Confidence: Conversations Between a Doctoral Student and Supervisor on Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis to Explore the Everyday Worlds of Children and Families

Busch and Danby engage in a rich and honest dialogue to capture the methodological challenges encountered by a PhD candidate while learning a new methodology. In using storytelling as a device to examine methodological challenges, the perspectives of both the student and the supervisor are communicated. Beginning with an overview of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, the authors pay attention to challenges connected to data collection when using video recording to capture family in situ practices, transcription of data that captures the fine detail of the interaction, and data analysis. While challenges are examined, the authors also provide a number of strategies that support the methodological maneuvering. These include engaging in data sessions with supervisors and with other conversation analysts committing to join the ethnomethodology research community.

“I’m Your Best Friend”: Peer Interaction and Friendship in a Multilingual Preschool

Abstract Purpose This chapter investigates children’s play and social interactions in a multilingual preschool context where the lingua franca (common language) is English. This investigation follows the experiences of one child for whom English is a second language (L2). The analytic focus explores how the child gains access and participation in play activities in relation to the peer culture of the group. Methodology/approach Drawing on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis approaches, this chapter offers turn-by-turn analysis to show how the children’s interactions unfold and identifies children’s interactional approaches as they enter play and make friends. Particular attention is focused on how one of the children manages his attempts at entry into the peer group’s games using the building blocks. Findings The close detailed analysis of one extended episode highlighted the co-produced nature of interaction. The findings identify a repertoire of four resources used by one of the L2 children within the peer group, to access play activities in the building space: (1) linguistic resources of requests, such as “Can I play?” “Are you building?”; (2) “tailing” others closely; (3) references to the moral obligations of being a best friend; and (4) using objects as resources for entry. While the analytic focus is on one child’s strategies, analysis considers this child’s individual actions in relation to his peers. What is made apparent is that children’s uptake and participation in peer interaction is dependent on the social agenda and the local aspects of peer culture, not solely on childrens language proficiency. Originality/value Attention to how children employ strategies to play and understanding the local conditions of peer culture can assist educators to support children’s attempts for participation and friendship in multilingual early years settings.