Leonie Arthur

Discourses of the Early Years Learning Framework: constructing the early childhood professional

In Australia, as elsewhere, many factors have contributed to making the struggle for recognition of the professional status of early childhood difficult and ongoing. Arguably this has led to instabilities surrounding professional identity and how members of the field regard themselves and their work. The development and release of the Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (EYLF) was perceived by many as an opportunity to raise the status and standing of the early childhood professional within the early childhood field itself and in the wider community. The EYLF positions all those who work directly with children in early childhood settings as ‘educators’, and sets out the expectations for childrens learning and what educators can do to promote that learning. In doing so, the EYLF produces, reproduces and circulates both new and familiar discourses of early childhood education. In this article, the authors draw on research capturing the perceptions of the early childhood practitioners who took part in the trial of the EYLF across Australia in 2009 to investigate whether and how curriculum interventions such as the EYLF have the potential to shape/reshape early childhood professional identity. Utilising the concepts of discourse, subjectivity, power-knowledge and agency, the authors explore the possibilities and dangers of the construction of an early childhood professional identity in and through the EYLF.

Popular Culture and Early Literacy Learning

Children experience a wide range of literacy practices in their homes and communities, yet these are not generally reflected in early childhood settings. This article reports on research findings which indicate that while childrens home and community literacy experiences and texts are increasingly digital and connected to popular media culture, experiences and texts in educational settings are predominantly book-based and generally exclude popular media culture. This practice marginalises children whose literacy practices at home are predominantly with television, videos, computers, comics and magazines rather than with ‘quality’ childrens books. Concerns regarding the role of popular media culture in childrens lives are critically examined and responses explored. Examples from research that illustrates ways of including popular culture in early childhood settings to enhance literacy learning opportunities for children from diverse backgrounds are also included.

Collaborative practitioner research: opening a third space for local knowledge production

Early childhood education and care is currently experiencing unprecedented policy interest and expansion. This policy and practice landscape requires new forms of adaptive leadership, new spaces for production of the knowledge necessary for this changing context, and tools that can support the development of leadership qualities. This paper examines the potential of practitioner research to produce contextually relevant knowledge and to develop leadership capacity. Our findings show that collaborative practitioner research groups provide a relatively safe environment for the sharing of dilemmas and critical reflections. The practitioners who participated in this research wanted access to narratives of change in typically resourced early childhood contexts as well as in the more highly resourced settings that are more often reflected in academic research and literature. This suggests there is a need for much more of this work to be publicly available. These groups can generate the courage required to open practice based research to public critique. This, we argue is an important element of activist leadership. Collaborative practitioner research opens up the possibility for practitioners to position themselves as knowledge producers and to revitalize the knowledge base that informs teacher education in the academy. In supporting this move, academics need to position themselves as resource gathers and co-learners thus opening a third space for knowledge production. The challenges for the profession are how to fund and effectively disseminate collaborative practitioner research and how to draw it into dialogue with other forms of research.

Communication, language and literacy from birth to five

agree with these sentiments though I feel the claims that it ‘covers every aspect of working outdoors in the early years and fully explains the importance of outdoor play to children’s development’ are a little strong. Anyone focusing on outdoor play and child development from a more academic perspective would find this book a good starting point but they would need to read far more widely and deeply. In summary, this book has a great deal to offer all practitioners involved in young children’s learning and those who are still training. As a governor of a primary school that is just about to develop a new outdoor area, I shall be hastily passing this book onto the staff as it offers reassurance, support and inspiration.

Assessing Internet Resources for Early Childhood Education

Educators and parents must make sound educational decisions about of digital resources for use with young children. This paper reports on a project which evaluated current online resources for children eight years and younger. Over sixty sites were evaluated. Analysis examined the availability and quality of the sites and suitability for two groups: under fives and over fives. Many sites were difficult for young children to use independently and demanded expertise with literacy processes beyond the level of children in this age group.