EDUC08044 2022 Philosophy and Early Learning and Care

Philosophy is vital to the study of education, and therefore early education and a sound knowledge of different philosophical perspectives leads to a deeper engagement with the choices and commitments an educator makes within their educational practice (Allen & Goddard, 2017). Philosophy raises and addresses questions and in this module, this will be in relation to early educational aims, methods, and problems, and will be linked to modules on educational policy, pedagogy, and curriculum.

This module will involve students in critical thinking, critical debate and critical reflection on education and care and the relationship between these. Students will also explore the impact that their understandings of these topics has on their and others practices when working with very young children in Early Years environments. It will support students with philosophical thinking on their positionality in relation to their Early Education and Care practices. 

Students will explore multiple discourses related to the sector and the impact that these can have. They will examine the dominant discourses and question the potential impact of an unquestioning approach towards these and explore in-depth the limitations of relying on one particular set of theories to the exclusion of others.

Key concepts and contemporary issues relevant to the area will be explored and critically examined. Students will explore a variety of positions or arguments on these with a view to evaluating them and forming their own position on them. 

The module will support the development of attention to alternative voices and the capacity to explore alternative potentialities.

Students will be supported to gain confidence in outlining their considered rationale for the approaches they take to ECEC and to take this forward into their career whilst practical experiences of engaging with philosophical thinking will support students to engage in philosophical thinking and inquiry with young children. 

In recent years, new discourses have emerged to inform the philosophy and pedagogy of early childhood. This collection brings together contributions from leading scholars in early childhood education, and each chapter engages with the critical task of reformulating early childhood education and the philosophy of the child with a specific focus on pedagogy. The contributors to Philosophy and Pedagogy of Early Childhoodexplore pedagogy through a philosophical lens, and discuss themes including intersubjectivity, alterity, ethics, and creative experience. Although these themes are addressed in very different ways, each invokes a call to teachers to consider their own position in the dialogical process of learning, and suggests that pedagogy is necessarily situated, provisional, compositional, and discursive. Such critical and philosophical inquiry is a welcome antidote in an era of pedagogical certainty and standards-based agendas. This book was originally published as a special issue of Educational Philosophy and Theory.

John Dewey and the Art of Teaching: Toward Reflective and Imaginative Practice is an engaging and accessible introduction to the art of teaching as seen through the eyes of John Dewey. Authors Douglas J. Simpson, Michael J. B. Jackson, and Judy C. Aycock provide a lucid interpretation of the complexities and art of teaching in contemporary classrooms. In addition, they discuss, apply, and question the practical implications of Dewey's ideas about the art of teaching for beginning and practicing teachers.

In this book, noted Nordic researchers and teacher educators provide insights into early childhood discourses and practices in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. In addition to these insiders' perspectives, an American scholars explore Nordic themes, trends, and practices as they emerge in the book's chapters on such varied topics as Nordic childhoods, children's perspectives, preschool teacher education reforms and developments, transition from preschool to primary school, learning through play, caregiving and instruction.

Beauty is something we value instinctively. We find it in art and in nature, in words, images and ideas, seeking it through our senses and through our intellect, in others and in ourselves. This book seeks to re-awaken educators to the power of beauty as an educational concept, to its relevance for schools and the current needs of students and teachers. Drawing upon a range of practical examples, Winston considers the nature and meaning of the experience of beauty, analysing its cognitive, affective and moral energies in order to demonstrate how beauty can provide young minds with some of their most powerful educational experiences. Incorporating examples across the curriculum at all levels of schooling, Winston argues that a due consideration of beauty in education can address some of the more fundamental problems that continue to bedevil policy and practice. With its clarity of style and wealth of practical examples, it will be of great interest to academics, teachers and education students at the graduate and postgraduate levels.

This is a book about what many teachers know but are increasingly being prevented from talking about: that real education always involves a risk. The risk is there because, as W. B. Yeats has put it, education is not about filling a bucket but about lighting a fire. It is there because students are not to be seen as objects to be moulded and disciplined, but as subjects of action and responsibility.The Beautiful Risk of Education is organised around a critical discussion of seven key educational concepts: creativity, communication, teaching, learning, emancipation, democracy, and virtuosity.By opposing the risk aversion that characterises many contemporary educational policies and practices, Gert J.J. Biesta makes a strong argument for giving risk a central place in our educational endeavours and brings risk taking to the forefront of a critical pedagogical practice.

Educational change and reform on a larger scale Bourdieu for Educators: Policy and Practice, brings the revolutionary research and thinking of Pierre Bourdieu (1930[en]2002) of France to public educational leaders in North America, Canada, Australia, and the U.K. This text brings Bourdieus corpus into the arena of elementary and secondary educational reform and change, and offers policy, research, and practice discussions. Authors Fenwick W. English and Cheryl L. Bolton use Bourdieu to challenge the standards movement in different countries, the current vision of effective management, and the open market notion connecting pay to performance. The text shows that connecting pay to performance wont improve education for the poorest group of school students in the U.S., Canada, or the U.K., regardless of how much money is spent trying to erase the achievement gap. The authors layout the bold educational agenda of Pierre Bourdieu by demonstrating that educational preparation must take into account larger socioeconomic-political realities in order for educational change and reform to make an impact.

Cannella, G. (1997). Deconstructing early childhood education. Social justice and revolution. New York: Peter Lang.

Heydon, R. and Iannacci, L. (2009) Early Childhood Curricula and the De-pathologizing of Childhood. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division. Available at: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,sso&db=nlebk&AN=468749&site=eds-live&scope=site

David, T., Goouch, K. and Powell, S. (2016) The Routledge International Handbook of Philosophies and Theories of Early Childhood Education and Care, Routledge, New York. ISBN: 978-1-315-67897-9

Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education.New York: Macmillan

Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Opressed. New York: Continuum.

Grenfell, M. 2009. Applying Bourdieu’s field theory: the case of social capital and education, Education, Knowledge and Economy, 3(1): 17–34.

Lynn E. Cohen (2008) Foucault and the Early Childhood Classroom, Educational Studies, 44:1, 7-21, DOI: 10.1080/00131940802224948

Mac Naughton, G. (2005) Doing Foucault in Early Childhood Studies: Applying post-structural ideas. London: Routledge.

Moyles.J. Jane Payler and Jan Georgeson (2014) Early Years Foundations: Critical Issues. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Available at: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,sso&db=nlebk&AN=697592&site=eds-live&scope=site

PACEY(2013) What does “school ready” really mean?Professional Associationfor Childcare and Early YearsKent

Ryan,S. and Susan Grieshaber (2005) Practical Transformations and Transformational Practices : Globalization, Postmodernism, and Early Childhood Education. Amsterdam: JAI Press Inc (Advances in Early Education and Day Care). Available at: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,sso&db=nlebk&AN=166779&site=eds-live&scope=site

Vuorisalo M., Alanen L. (2015) Early Childhood Education as a Social Field: Everyday Struggles and Practices of Dominance. In: Childhood with Bourdieu. Studies in Childhood and Youth. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137384744_5

Brownlee, J., & Berthelson, D. (2007). Personal epistemology and relational pedagogy in early teacher education programs. Early Years: An International Journal, 26, 17–29.

Farquhar. S, & E.J. White (2014) Philosophy and Pedagogy of Early Childhood, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 46:8, 821-832.

Gibbons, A. (2007) ‘Philosophers as Children: Playing with style in the philosophy of education’, Educational Philosophy & Theory, 39(5), pp. 506–518. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-5812.2007.00251.x.

Gunnarsdottir, B. (2014).From play to school: Are core values of ECEC iniceland being undermined by 'schoolification'?International Journal of EarlyYears Education, 22(3), 242-250. doi:10.1080/09669760.2014.960319

James, A. (2007).Giving voice to children's voices: Practices and problems,pitfalls and potentials.American Anthropologist, 109(2), 261-272.doi:10.1525/aa.2007.109.2.261

Langford, R. (2012). An early childhood professional’s authority: How can it be used for influencing and instigating action for social goods? In V. Pacini-Ketchabaw & L. Prochner (Eds.) Re-situating Canadian early childhood education (pp. 73-89), New York: Peter Lang Publishing.

Langford, R., Albanese, P., Bezanson, K., Prentice, S., Richardson, B. & White, J. (2017). Caring about care: Repositioning care as integral to the politics and policies of early childhood education and care in Canada, external link. Global Studies of Childhood Journal.

Mayall, B. (2006).Values and assumptions underpinning policy for children andyoung people in england. Children's Geographies, 4(1), 9-17.doi:10.1080/14733280600576923

Moss, P. (2007).Bringing politics into the nursery: Early childhood education asa democratic practice. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal,15(1), 5-20. doi:10.1080/13502930601046620

Moss, P. Power and resistance in early childhood education: From dominant discourse to democratic experimentalism, September 2017, Journal of Pedagogy - Pedagogický časopis 8(1):11-32

Janet Moyles, Siân Adams & Alison Musgrove (2002) Early years practitioners' understanding of pedagogical effectiveness: Defining and managing effective pedagogy, Education 3-13, 30:3, 9-18.