Children's interests are widely recognised as pivotal to meaningful learning and play in the early years. However, less is known about how children's diverse interests may contribute to relationships and interactions within peer cultures. This article builds upon previous studies to argue that participation in sociocultural activity generates interests informed by funds of knowledge that children reconstruct in their play. It reports findings from an interpretive study that used filmed footage of children's play as a provocation to explore the perspectives of children, parents and teachers. The article presents original insights regarding some ways in which mutually constituted funds of knowledge afford opportunities for children to co-construct meaning. The findings also indicate that interests arising from diverse funds of knowledge may contribute to the interplay of power, agency and status within peer cultures. This raises some issues regarding how matters of inclusion and exclusion are understood and responded to within early years settings. The article recommends that teachers and researchers engage critically with children's individual and collective funds of knowledge in order to better understand the complexities of play cultures.
ARTICLE HISTORY
The aim of the study reported in this paper was to identify the value that makerspaces can have in early childhood education (ECE). Drawing on data from research on makerspaces in four early childhood settings in a northern city in England, part of an international project on makerspaces in the early years ("Makerspaces in the Early Years: Enhancing Digital Literacy and Creativity" or MakEY), we identify three key principles that are integral to this provision: maker agency, maker funds of knowledge, and postdigital maker play. The paper identifies that makerspaces lead to the development of skills and knowledge that will become increasingly important in societies that are becoming highly technologized.
This article contests the emphasis that is frequently placed upon childfriendly methods in research with young children. Focusing upon a series of research encounters from a doctoral study of play in an early years classroom, I examine my interactions with the children and their social and material worlds and draw upon these encounters to highlight some emergent and unpredictable elements of research with young children. I argue that these elements call for a decreased emphasis upon the implementation of method towards an openness to uncertainty and an ethical responsiveness to the researcher's relations with children and their everyday lives. An ethical responsiveness to uncertainty has implications throughout the research process, including through the ways in which we choose to read, interpret and present the data. This article offers original contributions to contemporary debates regarding what might become possible when uncertainty is acknowledged and embraced in research with young children.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Liz Chesworth explores the nature of leadership in private day nurseries and talks to four leaders who have found ways of managing the ever changing and complex roles needed to offer quality provision.
Digital technologies can enhance ‘offline’ activities if the right balance is struck, explain Professor Elizabeth Wood, Aderonke Folorunsho and Liz Chesworth of the University of Sheffield's School of Education
Since 2004 and the enlargement of the EU, increased migration from Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries to the UK necessitates sustained research on the implications for children, their families, and practitioners in the early years.This paper draws upon a sociocultural approach to bring into focus family story sharing practices. We report findings from an interpretivist study to foreground the experiences of two families living in Scotland. The findings indicate that story sharing practices can potentially be a meeting place for early childhood practitioners to engage with children's linguistic and cultural heritage, and can provide opportunities to listen to and build upon diverse cultural traditions. The findings also highlight that children's sense of their cultural and individual identities, as well as their sense of belonging, entail a complex set of interactions, and that embedding them into curricula and pedagogy require a sensitive criticality and open dialogue between practitioners, children and families. As a result of the findings, it is recommended that early years practitioners build upon story sharing practices as a means to engage critically with issues of culture and identity, and to facilitate the participation of CEE children and families in early years settings.
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