shalimodasha views on children’s participation …thatcurrently ......

Shalimo November 2014

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Views on Children’s Par1cipa1on:

Working Within and in Between Paradigms

Childcare Research, Evidence and Policy: Mobilizing Knowledge November 13, 2014

Dasha Shalimo, Ph.D. Candidate University of Toronto, OISE Applied Psychology and Human Development [email protected]

In this presenta1on… • Emerging Interest • Literature Review: Young children’s engagement and parPcipaPon and paradigmaPc discourses in ECEC • Conceptual Framework • Methodology and Preliminary Findings

• Further Analyses • Discussion and CriPcal Issues for ReflecPon

Opening Remarks

There are many ways young children can par$cipate in a child care curriculum; however, if the method of parPcipaPon does not allow their voices to shape the decisions that affect them, then young children are not involved in meaningful parPcipaPon and not intensively engaged.

Emerging Interest Tensions among researches, policymakers, and prac$$oners are inevitable. Science is focused on what we do not know. Social policy and the delivery of health and human services

are focused on what we should do. Scien$sts are interested in ques$ons. Policymakers and prac$$oners are interested in

answers. Scholars embrace complexity. Policymakers demand simplicity. Scien$sts suggest that we stop and reflect. Service

providers are expected to act. Shonkoff, 2000, p.182

The evidence-‐based paradigm in early childhood educa$on and care is anything but evident.

Vanderbroeck, Roets & Roose, 2012, p. 537


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Emerging Interest

Whose knowledge and whose voices are not being heard?

Child PracPce

Science Policy The degree to which children should have a voice in anything is a subject of strongly divergent opinion (Hart, 1992, p. 5).

Literature Review: Children’s Par1cipa1on: Typology

Hart (1992) Ladder of Young People’s ParPcipaPon Shier (2001) Pathways to ParPcipaPon

Literature Review: Paradigms: Typology Roots of Paradigms

Paradigms Author

Cultural TradiPons Pre-‐Primary & Social-‐Pedagogy Benned, J. (2005) TheorePcal PerspecPve

Developmental & PosfoundaPonal/Postmodern

Moss, P. (2007)

Historical-‐theorePcal PerspecPve Conforming, Reforming, & Transforming McNaughton, G. (2003)

InformaPve PerspecPve Theory & PracPce Taguchi, L. (2008) Social PosiPoning of the Profession PerspecPve

Exchange & Gij giving Vaughan, G. (1999)

Views on the Child PerspecPve Child as nature Child as reproducer of culture & knowledge

Dahlberg, G. & Taguchi, L. (1994); Hultqvist, K. (1990); Taguchi, L. (2000); Nordin-‐Hultman, (2004)

Overarching Four Core PerspecPves Developmental PoliPcal & Economic Social & Cultural Human Rights

Woodhead, M. (2006)

Children’s Input in Curriculum PerspecPve

Logical RhizomaPc

Sellers, M. (2013)

Conceptual Framework

Post-‐Modern Paradigm Individual's SubjecPvism

Social & Historical Pedagogical Contextualism

Distributed Pluralism

CriAcal -‐ Dialogic Paradigm ParPcipatory Learning

AcPon Social & Ecological TransformaPon

Modern Paradigm ScienPfic ObjecPvism

Pedagogical Universalism

Hierarchal Structurism

ConstrucPvism

Developmental

Socio-‐Historical

Young Children’s engagement

& parAcipaAon

Edutainment as Engagement Mere ParPcipaPon

Intense Engagement AcPve ParPcipaPon


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Modern Paradigm: Cri1cal Appraisal  Developmentalism or scienPfic posiPvism has a disPnct vocabulary: words like “development”, “improvement of quality standards”, “readiness for school”, “best pracPce”, “outcomes”.  It draws on a few disciplinary perspecPves, notably child development and economics.  It privileges instrumental raPonality and technical pracPce. Its prime quesPons being: “what are the outcomes?” and “what works?”. In doing so, it sets up a binary opposiPon between process and outcomes. (Moss, 2007, p. 229) Educators do a good job for and about children, but Early Childhood EducaPon and Care is about doing things with children (MacNaughton, 2008).

Construc1vism: Cri1cal Appraisal  Hruby( 2001) defined construcPvism as a “process inside the head” and construcPonism as an “outside-‐the-‐head, social process between people in social relaPonships” (p. 51).  Popkewitz (1998) quesPoned whether construcPvism, as it’s understood and implemented by many, discursive imaginaries that can produce social change. He concluded that contemporary discussions of construcPvism produce rather academically neutral relaPonships than criPcal and social. That is, construcPvism produces a mind/society binary.

Postmodern Paradigm: Cri1cal Appraisal  McLaren (2000) argues that postmodern paradigm, while it makes suggesPve arguments that challenge modernist assumpPons and addresses the power/knowledge problem in modernist hegemony, suffers from a profoundly anemic abstracPon from the poliPcal and social context of the very issues it raises.

 Specifically, McLaren claims that “postmodern theory has failed to provide an effecPve counterstrategy to the spread of neoliberal ideology that currently holds educaPonal policy and pracPce in its thrall” (McLaren & Farahmandpur, 2000, p. 28)

Cri1cal – Dialogic Paradigm  Habermas, J. (1996): communicaPve reason

 Freire (1997; 2007): dialogue & praxis

 Giroux, H., A. & McLaren, P. (1992): radical pedagogy & criPcal cultural studies ◦  They argued that radical pedagogy is the one that has a potenPal to revise modernist binaries in social pracPces. It has strength to explain how individuals within a system can effect change while also demonstraPng the mechanisms of that system of power.

 Cannella, G., S. (1997) ◦  The most criPcal voices that are silent in our construcPons of early childhood educaPon are the children with whom we work. Our construcPons of research have not fostered methods that facilitate hearing their voices (p. 10).

 Bloch, M., N., Swadener, B., B. & Cannella, G., S. (2014): deconstrucPng & reconceptualizing early childhood, child-‐centred curriculum, and developmental psychology

 Palaiologou, I. (2012): ethical issues in research with children; ethical praxis; ethical issues in policy and pracPce


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Methodology  The study is framed as a qualitaPve research with underlying elements of criPcal theory that understands educaPon, and pedagogy specifically, as an extremely poliPcal process where educators struggle with the complexiPes of power relaPons of early childhood pedagogy under the veil of neutrality (Steinberg & Cannella, 2012).

   The study uPlizes such elements of criPcal research as respect for mulPple sources of knowledge and the call for transformaPve acPon (Quintero, 2009). UlPmately, the study “tend[s] to locate the foundaPons of truth in specific historical, economic, […], and social infrastructures” (Lincoln & Guba, 2000, p.177). Furthermore, the study incorporates mulPple voices – voices of the ELFs’ author (s), voices of ECE respondents, and a voice of the researcher (Hertz, 1997).

Amalgama1on of mul1ple truths and mul1ple voices benefits the study in following ways:

• The study allocates the children’s engagement/parPcipaPon phenomenon within ECEC paradigms, analyses and interprets the presentaPon of those in the Early Learning Frameworks (ELF).

• The study is mulP-‐disciplinary (in this case bridging the fields of Psychology, Philosophy, Curriculum Studies, Sociology of Childhood and PoliPcal Science).

• The study creates link between text (ELF) and society, Early Childhood Educators (ECE).

• The study addresses chronological formaPon of the ECEC Early Learning Framework documents.

• The study does not aim to compare and contrast the ELF documents; it rather adempts to do a criPcal-‐theorePcal work by analyzing why certain paradigms take a predominant stance when it comes to pracPcal applicaPons of ECEC pedagogy.

• The study not only considers the texts as semioPcs, but also analyses acPons of social groups expressed through wriden and spoken languages.

Why is it important to discuss?

Curriculum in general and ECEC frameworks in parPcular are understood as a “disciplinary technology that directs how the

individual to act, feel, and ‘see’ the world and self. As such [they] are the forms of social regulaPon” (Popkewitz, 1996, p.2)

ELFs’ Theore1cal Models Resource: Review of Early Learning Frameworks in Canada ELF TheorePcal Model

Department of EducaPon and Early Childhood Development. (2008). New Brunswick Curriculum Framework for Early Learning and Child Care: English: Fredericton, NB. English Version

TheorePcal model – a holisAc/socio-‐cultural model with goals specific to communicaPon and literacies throughout the document. It is also influenced by the criAcal and post-‐structural image of the powerful, competent child.

PEI Department of EducaPon and Early Childhood Development (2011). PEI Early Learning Framework: RelaPonships, Environments, Experiences. The Curriculum Framework of the Preschool Excellence IniPaPve.

Social pedagogical approach ConstrucAvist Approach-‐influenced by developmental theories of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky

Ministry of Families, (2007). MeePng Early Childhood Needs: Québec’s EducaPonal Program for Childcare Services Update. Quebec City, Quebec: Ministère de la Familie et des Aînés. English Version

TheorePcal model: holisAc/socio-‐cultural with some elements of pre-‐primary Framework states that it supports two main theories: 1) Ecological approach 2) ALachment theory

Best Start Expert Panel on Early Learning. (2007). Early Learning for Every Child Today: A framework for Ontario early childhood se}ngs. Ontario Government. Ministry Of EducaPon. (2014). How Does Learning Happen? Ontario’s Pedagogy for the Early Years. Ontario Government.

ELECT: TheorePcal model based on a developmental theoreAcal model in combinaPon with socio-‐cultural, criAcal and post-‐structural theory. How Does Learning Happen: TheorePcal model based on a developmental theoreAcal model in combinaAon with socio-‐behaviorist, socio-‐cultural, and criAcal theory.

Manitoba Child Care Program. (2011). Early Returns: Manitoba’s ELCC Curriculum Framework for Preschool Centres and Nursery Schools.

The theorePcal model is holisAc/socio-‐cultural.

Saskatchewan Ministry of EducaPon. (2008) Play and ExploraPon: Early Learning Program Guide. Regina, SK: Early Learning and Child Care Branch, Ministry of EducaPon. Reprint 2013.

HolisAc learning and development, influenced by the criAcal and post-‐structural image of the powerful, competent child.

BriPsh Columbia Ministry of Health and Ministry of Children and Family Development. (2008) BriPsh Columbia Early Learning Framework. Victoria, BC: Ministry of Health and Ministry of Children and Family Development

HolisAc/socio-‐cultural with a focus on languages and literacies as one of the four areas of early learning. It also takes a criAcal and post-‐structural view of children as powerful and competent.

McCuaig, K. (2014)


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Preliminary Findings: Developmental Perspec1ve Preliminary Findings cont.

Preliminary Findings cont.

Edutainment as Engagement

Mere ParPcipaPon

Intense Engagement AcPve ParPcipaPon

Preliminary Findings: Summary

• Social Pedagogy • Transforming • Child as reproducer of culture & knowledge • Human Rights & beyond • RhizomaPc

Post-‐modern Paradigm

• Pre-‐Primary • Conforming, Reforming • Developmental • Child as nature • Logical

Modern Paradigm

3 C’s Concept CriPcal-‐Dialogic Paradigm

When it comes to

implementaPon


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Further Analyses  The paper uPlizes CriPcal Discourse Analysis tools, as proposed by Gee (2011) of ‘social language’ and ‘intertexuality’ to further examine:

 (1) what resources are referenced to raPonalize the ELFs’ posiPon on early childhood pedagogy (intertexuality);

 (2) what pedagogical vocabulary as it is related to young children’s engagement and parPcipaPon concept the ELFs use to guide ECE’s day-‐to-‐day pracPces;

 (3) empirical findings of the online standardized open-‐ended survey and follow-‐up informal semi-‐structured interviews.

“A criPque is not a mader of saying that things are not right as they are. It is a mader of poinPng out on what kinds of assumpPons, what kinds of familiar, unchallenged, unconsidered modes of thought the

pracPces that we accept rest.” ― Michel Foucault

Dialogic environment could help to create a more inclusive, tolerant, and accepPng society where educaPon is radical and democraPc and

where the child’s rights are fundamentally rethought in light of responses to social otherness and civil, parPcipatory significance.

Discussion and Cri1cal Issues for Reflec1on • Increased governmental control (values from above) and less space for consultaPon, specifically with

children (values as a result of negoPaPon process)

• Schoolreadiness or Pedagogy of Listening & Care • Why is developmental theory and quanPtaPve/posiPvist research sPll dominant and dominaPng noPons of truth in early childhood research, policy, pedagogy, curriculum, and theory? • What is important •  to create ELF for ECEs about children? •  to create ELF in consultaPon with children?

• EducaAonal Values or Economic NecessiAes: In which ways has work represented over the years helped to resolve criPcal curriculum and policy studies related to early childhood, given globalizing capital and neoliberal narrowing possibiliPes?

◦  DemocraAc deficiency: criPcal – democraPc engagement, parPcipatory learning, creaPng new paradigm ???


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References: Benned, J. (2005). As cited in Report of The Standing Senate Commidee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology: Early Childhood EducaPon and Care: Next Steps, p. 32, April 2009

Bloch, M., N., Swadener, B., B. & Cannella, G., S. (2014). Reconceptualizing early childhood care and educa$on. A reader. Cri$cal ques$ons, new imaginaries and social ac$vism. Peter Lang Publishing: New York.

Canella, G. S. (1997). Deconstruc$ng Early Childhood Educa$on: Social jus$ce and revolu$on. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.

Cohen, L., Manion, L. & Morrison, K. (2007). Research methods in educaPon. (6th ed.). Routledge: New York & London.

Dahlberg, G. & Moss, P. (2005). Ethics and poli$cs in early childhood educa$on. London and New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

Dahlberg, G. & Moss, P. (2012). Contes$ng early childhood and opening for change. London and New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

Farquhar, B. & Fitzsimons, P. (2008). (Eds.). Philosophy of early childhood educa$on. Transforming narra$ves. Blackwell Publishing.

Freire, P. (1997). Pedagogy for the oppressed. New York: The ConPnuum Publishing Group Inc.

Freire, P. (2007). Pedagogy of the heart.New York, London: The ConPnuum Publishing Group Inc.

Gee, J. P. (2011). How to do discourse analysis: A toolkit. Routledge: New York & London.

Giroux, H. (1983). Theories of reporoduc$onand resistance in the new sociology of educa$on. A cri$cal analysis. Harvard EducaPonal Review, 53, p. 257-‐293.

Giroux, H., A. & McLaren, P. (1992). WriPng from the margins: Geographies of idenPty, pedagogy, and power. Journal of Educa$on, 174 (1), p. 7-‐30.

Guba E., G. & Lincoln, Y., S. (2000). ParadigmaPc controversies, contradicPons, and emerging confluences. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitaPve research. (2nd ed.), (pp.163-‐188). Sage: Thousand Oak, CA.

Habermas, J. (1996). The philosophical discourse of modernity: Twelve lectures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Hart, R. (1992). InnocenP essays: Children’s parPcipaPon from tokenism to ciPzenship. UNICEF.

Hertz, R. (1997). IntroducPon: Reflexivity and voice. In R. Hertz (Ed.), Reflexivity and voice. Sage: Thousand Oak, CA.

Hultqvist, K. & Dahlberg, G. (2001). Governing the child in the new millennium. RoutledgeFalmer: New York & London.

Hruby, G., C. (2001). Sociological, postmodern, and new realism perspecPves in social construcPonism: ImplicaPons for literacy research. Reading Research Quarterly, 36, p. 48-‐62

McLaren, P. (1988). Schooling the postmodern body: CriPcal pedagogy and the poliPcs of enfleshment. Journal of EducaPon, 170, 53–83.

McLaren, P. & Farahmandpur, R. (2000). Reconsidering Marx in post-‐marxist Pmes: A requiem for postmodernism? EducaPonal Researcher, 25–33.

Mac Naugton, G. (2003). Shaping Early Childhood: Learners, Curriculum and Contexts. McGraw Hill: Open University Press.

Mac Naughton, G. (2008). Early Childhood EducaPon Conference. Video exempt. Retrieved from hdps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0H5I1pkp40

McCuaig, K. (2014). Review of Early Learning Frameworks in Canada. Atkinson Centre, OISE.

Moss, P. (2007). MeePng across the paradigmaPc divide. Educa$onal Philosophy and Theory. 39:3, 229-‐245. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-‐5812.2007.00325.x

Palaiologou, I. (2012). Ethical Prac$ce in Early Childhood. Sage: Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington DC.

Popkewitz, T. (1996). The producPon of reason and power: Curriculum history and intercultural tradiPons. Paper presented at the American EducaPonal Research AssociaPon, New York, NY.

Popkewitz, T. (1998). Dewye, Vygotsky, and the social administraPon of the individual: ConstrucPvist pedagogy as systems of ideas in historical spaces. American Educa$onal Research Journal, 35, p. 535-‐570.

Quintero, E. P. (2009) Cri$cal Literacy in Early Childhood Educa$on: ArMul Story & the Integrated Curriculum. New York: Lang Publishing.

Shier , H.(2001). Pathways to ParPcipaPon: Openings, opportuniPes and obligaPons. Children and Society: 15, 107-‐117.

Seller, M. (2013). Young children becoming curriculum. Deluze, Te Whāriki and curricular understandings. Routledge: London & New York.

Taguchi, H., L. (2010). Going beyond the theory/prac$ce divide in early childhood educa$on. Introducing an intra-‐ac$ve pedagogy. Routledge: London & New York.

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Vanderbroeck, M., Roets, G. & Roose, R. (2012). Why the evidence-‐based paradigm in Early childhood educaPon and care is anything but evident. European Early Childhood Educa$on Research Journal Vol. 20, No. 4,p. 537–552

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