Whose hand rocks the cradle? Parallel discourses in the baby room

Powell, Sacha; Goouch, Kathy

doi:10.1080/09575146.2012.687865

Cited by 19 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…An increasing focus on the significance of infant-toddler settings in many countries has highlighted many challenges that are faced by infant educators in terms of professional status, qualifications and curriculum quality (e.g. Elfer, 2012;Powell and Goouch, 2012;Rockel, 2009). Future research is therefore needed to explore educator understandings and observed practices across diverse contexts and ways in which such professional issues may impact upon the complexity of teaching practices.…”

Section: Implications For Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Educators’ understandings of, and support for, infant peer relationships in early childhood settings

Davis

Degotardi

2014

Journal of Early Childhood Research

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This research adopted a qualitative methodology to investigate the reported beliefs and pedagogical practices relating to infant peer relationships held by three early childhood infant educators. Thematic analysis was used to derive commonalties and differences that reflected these educators' views and practices about children's early peer relationships. Results indicate in-depth understandings about children's capacities that did not, however, appear to be translated into their reported practice. This research has implications for planning and programming experiences designed for social interactions, along with the significant role of the early childhood educator in recognising and fostering young children's early peer relationships. Keywordschild care, early childhood education, early childhood pedagogy, educator perspectives, infants, peer relationshipsIn this article, we present the perspectives of three infant educators in regard to how they understood and facilitated the developing social capabilities and peer relationships of infants in their programmes. Children's early peer relationships are a significant predictor of later social and emotional competence and academic success in school (Campbell et al., 2000;Hanish et al., 2007;Howes et al., 1994Howes et al., , 1998Tremblay et al., 2004). Human relationships comprise multiple dimensions including reciprocity, mutuality, social interactions, similarities, expectations, preferences and cooperation which result in notions of friendships and popularity (Hartup and Abecassis, 2002). Yet Hinde (1992) explains that human relationships are formed over time as individuals engage in social exchanges with others over the course of a history of shared interactions and activity. This draws attention to the origins of peer relationships in early childhood and in particular to accounts that children's peer relationships begin in the first year of life and stem from

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Section: Implications For Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Educators’ understandings of, and support for, infant peer relationships in early childhood settings

Davis

Degotardi

2014

Journal of Early Childhood Research

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“…While our findings are clearly exploratory, reports from some of these university qualified educators that they found it difficult to locate their own professional practice within the EYLF are of concern. With international research and professional literature demonstrating the complexity of infant-toddler learning and teaching (Degotardi 2014;Harrison and Sumsion 2014) as well as the importance of a strong professional identity for effective pedagogy (Page et al 2013;Powell and Goouch 2012), our findings suggest that the language of curriculum documents could potentially have negative impacts on the programmes that they aim to support.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is emerging evidence in this regard from the UK (Brooker 2010;Powell and Goouch 2012;Taggart 2011) and the US (Shin 2014), so it would be beneficial to compare conceptualisations of infant-toddler pedagogy given that many countries now have early childhood curricula and have begun examining educators' perspectives to varying degrees.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infants and toddlers: how visible are they in the Early Years Learning Framework?

Davis

Torr

Degotardi

2015

ICEP

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“…We acknowledge that work is needed to deepen understanding of interactions in nursery from the point of view of all stakeholders including parents, staff, managers and not least the babies themselves. Some of that work has been started already, in relation to parents (Elfer, 2009(Elfer, , 2014b, staff (Osgood, 2006;Powell & Goouch, 2012) and under threes (Elfer, 2006). Our focus here is on managers, because of their particular influence in the way any given set of policy and procedural requirements may be implemented (Leach, 2009, p. 195).…”

Section: Aims Of the Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(Hollway & Jefferson, 2013) We firmly distinguish between probing intrusively into views that managers may wish to remain private and being open to views that managers may be hesitant to express in case of criticism but nonetheless wish to convey. Powell and Goouch (2012) have shown how sensitive nursery staff may be to such feelings of criticism or disapproval. Hopkins (1988) sought to minimise this by expressing interest in the origins of her participants' views and asking them to illustrate issues where possible with examples from their practice.…”

Section: Interview Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pedagogy with babies: perspectives of eight nursery managers

Elfer¹,

Page²

2018

Early Childhood Pedagogies

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The last 30 years have seen a significant increase in babies attending nursery, with corresponding questions about the aims and organisation of practice. Research broadly agrees on the importance of emotionally consistent, sensitive and responsive interactions between staff and babies. Policy objectives for nursery and expectations of parents and staff give rise to different and sometimes conflicting aims for such interactions; for example attachments to staff, peer interactions or early learning. Research shows marked variations of pedagogy aims and organisation with babies in nurseries in different national and cultural contexts. It also demonstrates variation between nurseries in similar contexts and between staff in their beliefs and values about work with babies. This paper reports on an exploratory study of the beliefs, aspirations and approaches of eight managers concerning pedagogy with babies in two similar English local authorities. These managers spoke of the importance of being responsive to the concerns and priorities of parents, whilst being sensitive to the demands of the work on their staff. The main finding was of the contradictions and confusions managers felt were inherent in the work, arising from both conflicting policy objectives and personal beliefs and aspirations; sometimes their own and sometimes those of individual staff and parents. Urban, Vandenbroeck, Van Laere, Lazzari, and Peeters' [(2012). Towards competent systems in early childhood education and care. Implications for policy and practice. European Journal of Education, 47(4), 508-526.] concept of the 'competent system' is used to recommend a grounded approach to the development of a more culturally, socially and individually responsive pedagogy with babies than appears to exist at present.

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Whose hand rocks the cradle? Parallel discourses in the baby room

Cited by 19 publications

References 31 publications

Educators’ understandings of, and support for, infant peer relationships in early childhood settings

Educators’ understandings of, and support for, infant peer relationships in early childhood settings

Infants and toddlers: how visible are they in the Early Years Learning Framework?

Pedagogy with babies: perspectives of eight nursery managers

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