Professional Issues in Work with Babies and Toddlers

Pamela Oberhuemer is affiliated to the State Institute of Early Childhood Research in Munich, Germany. She was lead researcher of a government funded study on systems of early years education and professional training in Europe (SEEPRO), and of a six-country study on continuing professional learning systems commissioned by WiFF, a nation-wide early years workforce initiative in Germany. Pamela has acted as an early years consultant to the OECD (Starting Strong reviews) and UNESCO. Liz Brooker is a Reader in Early Childhood at the Institute of Education in London, UK. She spent many years as an early years teacher before returning to research and teach in the university, and her experience of working with young children and their families has informed her research and publications: on ethnic minority children’s learning at home and school, on transitions, on infants and toddlers, and most recently on play. Rod Parker-Rees is coordinator of Early Childhood Studies at Plymouth University, UK, where he has developed and led programmes at undergraduate and masters’ level. He has edited Meeting the Child in Steiner Kindergartens: An Exploration of Beliefs, Values and Practices and has co-edited Early Years Education (Major Themes in Education) and Early Childhood Studies: an introduction to the study of children’s worlds and children’s lives.

• Introduction Pamela Oberhuemer 1. Whose hand rocks the cradle? Parallel discourses in the baby room Sacha Powell and Kathy Goouch 2. Emotion in nursery work: Work Discussion as a model of critical professional reflection Peter Elfer 3. Caregiver–child relationships as a context for continuity in child care Susan L. Recchia 4. Documentation and analysis of children’s experience: an ongoing collegial activity for early childhood professionals Mariacristina Picchio, Donatella Giovannini, Susanna Mayer and Tullia Musatti 5. Accompaniment and quality in childcare services: the emergence of a culture of professionalization Florence Pirard and Jean-Marie Barbier 6. Community-based learning to support South African early group care Virginia Casper and Faith Lamb-Parker 7. Socio-spatial practices in a Finnish daycare group for one- to three-year-olds Niina Rutanen 8. What counts when working with mathematics in a toddler-group? Camilla Björklund 9. ‘Wasted down there’: policy and practice with the under-threes Rory McDowall Clark and Sue Baylis