This groundbreaking series questions the current dominant discourses surrounding early childhood, and offers instead alternative narratives of an area that is now made up of a multitude of perspectives and debates.
The series examines the possibilities and risks arising from the accelerated development of early childhood services and policies, and illustrates how it has become increasingly steeped in regulation and control. Insightfully, this collection of books shows how early childhood services can in fact contribute to ethical and democratic practices. The authors explore new ideas taken from alternative working practices in both the western and developing world, and from other academic disciplines such as developmental psychology. Current theories and best practice are placed in relation to the major processes of political, social, economic, cultural and technological change occurring in the world today.
Series: Contesting Early Childhood
This book explores the contribution of and art and creativity to early education, and examines the role of the atelier (an arts workshop in a school) and atelierista (an educator with an arts background) in the pioneering pre-schools of Reggio Emilia. It does so through the unique experience of Vea...
Published March 9th 2010 by Routledge
Series: Contesting Early Childhood
Going Beyond the Theory/Practice Divide in Early Childhood Education focuses on the use of pedagogical documentation as a tool for learning and transformation. Based on innovative research, the author presents new approaches to learning in early childhood education, shifting attention to the force...
Published August 10th 2009 by Routledge
Series: Contesting Early Childhood
In contemporary educational contexts young children and learning are tamed, predicted, supervised, controlled and evaluated according to predetermined standards. Contesting such intense governing of the learning child, this book argues that the challenge to practice and research is to find ways of...
Published February 26th 2009 by Routledge
Series: Contesting Early Childhood
Through compelling examples, Brian Edmiston presents the case for why and how adults should play with young children to create with them a 'workshop for life'. In a chapter on 'mythic play' Edmiston confronts adult discomfort over children's play with pretend weapons, as he encourages adults both...
Published October 17th 2007 by Routledge
Series: Contesting Early Childhood
The early childhood programme of Reggio Emilia in Italy is acclaimed as one of the best education systems in the world and this book offers the unique insight of Carlina Rinaldi, the former director of the municipal early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia and successor to Loris Malaguzzi, one of...
Published September 14th 2005 by Routledge
Series: Contesting Early Childhood
The theories and analyses of post-structural thinkers such as Michel Foucault can seem a long way from practice in early childhood services. In recent years, however, many early childhood researchers and practitioners have found this work important and this fascinating book brings together a range...
Published April 27th 2005 by Routledge
Series: Contesting Early Childhood
An expert in her field, Helen Penn discusses the inequalities between and within countries of childhood poverty and how this poverty is recognized and defined through the following case-studies: Kazakhstan - once part of the Soviet Union Swaziland - a country in Southern Africa devastated by...
Published February 23rd 2005 by Routledge
Series: Contesting Early Childhood
The early childhood services of Reggio Emilia in Northern Italy has gained worldwide interest and admiration. Drawing on the ‘Reggio approach’, and others, this book explores the ethical and political dimensions of early childhood services and argues the importance of these dimensions at a time...
Published January 12th 2005 by Routledge
