Larry Prochner

“The blessings of civilisation”: nineteenth‐century missionary infant schools for young native children in three colonial settings – India, Canada and New Zealand 1820s–1840s

In the context of missionary endeavours of the early nineteenth century there were considerable similarities in the religious and education blueprints for providing the “blessings of civilisation” to the young native “heathen” child in various parts of the British Empire. The three case studies presented illustrate a relatively undocumented aspect of missionary work concerning the adaptation of new European ideas for schooling very young children in so‐called infant schools. The comparative focus on the shared aspects of their colonial experience is illuminating of both the pervasiveness of missionary endeavours and the diversity of contexts to which those ideals were applied. This paper provides an overview of the context of new ideas for educating young children in Europe alongside the focus of British missionary endeavour towards its expanding colonial empire in the early years of the nineteenth century. Short illustrative case studies are presented in relation to the missionary infant schools in British India, Canada and New Zealand, all established in parallel during the 1820s–1840s. The characteristic of all infant schools, whether amongst the poor in Britain or the heathen in its colonies, was to create an ordered environment apart from the perceived disorder of the child’s home, and the focus was to produce an educable and orderly child. Each case study provides a different facet of the missionary quest to save children from their heathen ways through schooling.

Space considerations: materials in the learning environment in three majority world preschool settings

This paper draws on the comparative and qualitative data from a triple case study carried out in three semi‐rural early childhood education centres in Canada, India, and South Africa. The primary objective of this four year study was to provide in‐depth understanding of the ways in which policy, practice, and culture intersect in semi‐rural contexts. This article focuses on the organisation and use of materials in the preschool space as a means to examine the interplay between indigenous cultural norms as these relate to working with children and trends towards uniformity or globalisation of early childhood practice.

Contrasting Visions of Early Childhood Education: Examples from Rural and Urban Settings in Zimbabwe and India

This article explores the way in which two, quite distinct, visions of early childhood (EC) education were manifested in selected rural and urban centers in India and Zimbabwe. Elements of a pediatric orientation existed along with aspects of a pedagogical model that emphasizes a western form of school preparation. The article concludes that the potential for rural early childhood programs in particular, to be effective, may be strengthened if EC teacher education included knowledge about the divergent influences of these two orientations towards children and their developmental needs.

“Their little wooden bricks”: a history of the material culture of kindergarten in the United States

This article explores the material culture of kindergarten in the United States in relation to the production and consumption of materials and kindergarten theory and pedagogy. The focus is on Friedrich Froebel’s building gifts as they were manufactured and sold by the Milton Bradley Company from 1869 to 1939. A review of trade catalogues over the 70‐year period found that the gifts were available along with larger blocks and materials supporting progressive pedagogies. The presence of items in the catalogues supporting different and conflicting ideas is explained as a reflection of the enduring popularity of a conservative kindergarten pedagogy aligned with Froebel’s original ideas.

The American Creche: ‘Let's Do What the French Do, but Do it Our Way’

Early childhood programs in the USA have been characterized as fragmented. In recent times more integrated European models have been studied as lessons for the USA. The French system in particular has been held up as a model of high-quality service for families with particular relevance for US policymakers. This article reviews the history of early childhood programs in the USA that included attempts to introduce the French model of daily group infant care as early as the 1850s. While the French approach inspired American programs at the time, group infant care developed in line with the dominant approach to charity and social welfare that viewed the family as having the first responsibility for child rearing barring exceptional circumstances.

Looking into Early Childhood Education and Development Spaces: Visual Ethnography's Contribution to Thinking about Quality

Discussions about what constitutes a quality early childhood (EC) environment rarely focus on visual or spatial aspects, except to provide background information for talking about EC practice and childrens development in the preschool years. There is a need to look beyond the usual quality indicators, which tend to focus on poverty and childrens developmental potential so that context and cultural dimensions are often omitted in the discussion. This article thus explores the contribution of visual ethnography for thinking more about, or rethinking, some of the prevailing notions of quality in early childhood education (ECE). To do so, culture is seen as central to the discussion. This includes the organisation of space and the use of materials in EC settings. The idea in this article is to present images that stand in contrast to some of the current globalising discourse about what is good for the worlds children. In so doing, the authors thread together seemingly disparate ideas stemming from the centrality of culture and space theory, to the organisation of space, to the use of materials and to transitions in ECE.

`Cry and you cry alone': Timeout in early childhood settings

This article explores isolation in early childhood education settings in the context of historical and current theories of punishment. The authors conclude that although isolation was reinterpreted in the 20th century in relation to changing theories of learning, teaching and child development, its earlier meanings have endured.

MISSING PIECES: A REVIEW OF HISTORY CHAPTERS IN INTRODUCTORY EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION TEXTBOOKS

The results of a survey of history chapters in thirteen recent introductory early childhood education textbooks are presented in this paper. The chapters were reviewed on four dimensions: The rationale for the study of history, the dominant story of the history, the facts of the history, and the image of the history. Textbooks are described as important sources of knowledge for beginning students. While the facts of the history in textbooks are mostly accurate, the dominant story is derived mainly from the contributions of “giant thinkers” in psychology, education, and philosophy. The article concludes by recommending increased attention to the missing pieces of ECE history. Three examples are given: the role of caring knowledge, international perspectives, and the relation of preschool to school history.

Lessons and legacies of early childhood history

The topic of this special issue of Early Years is the history of early childhood education and care. The current attention to ECEC programmes and policies worldwide makes it imperative to understan...

SHAPING THE “HABITS OF MIND” OF DIVERSE LEARNERS IN EARLY CHILDHOOD TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAMS THROUGH POWERPOINT: AN ILLUSTRATIVE CASE

Abstract This study examines the use of PowerPoint as a teaching tool in a workplace- embedded program aimed at bridging immigrant/refugee early childhood educators into post-secondary studies, and how, in the process, it shapes students’ “habits of mind” (Turkle, 2004). The premise of the study is that it is not only the bodies of knowledge shaping teacher education programs which must be interrogated, but also the ways in which instructors and programs choose to represent and impart these understandings to students. The use of PowerPoint to advance an authoritative western, linear, rule-governed form of logic is analyzed based on McLuhan and McLuhan’s (1988) and Adams’ (2006) tetrads. The findings demonstrate that Power- Point enhances western authoritative ways of being through its modes of communication and representation, means of organizing information, forms of representing content and pedagogical approaches, thus obsolescing or displacing immigrant/refugee students’ own indigenous ways of knowing. Since learning always involves the development, integration, and reorganization of tools, and the medium is an extension of the self (McLuhan, 2003), the students should have multimodal opportunities to engage with and represent knowledge. When such opportunities are not provided, the life experiences and cultural knowledges of immigrant/refugee students are silenced. Expanding communicative and representative forms in early childhood teacher education programs is necessary to promote a more inclusive environment.