Janice A. Jipson – författare

Daredevil Research: Re-creating Analytic Practice gathers together ten research projects that seek to transform thinking about analytic practice and the construction of research knowledge. By experimenting with alternative models of representation unconstrained by the weight of traditional research protocols, the authors create multiple spaces for imagining how to differently identify issues for inquiry, select modes of analysis, and inscribe «data» into transmittable form. At once a production of research knowledge and a conceptual field for meaning-making, Daredevil Research suggests the possibilities of analytic practice in imaginative, independent space.

Should our public schools expressly teach morality? If so, which morality? Whose morality? How would we teach morality in school? At a time when many school communities are either trying to «keep morality out of school,» or are implementing character education curricula that focus primarily on modifying individual behaviors, this book argues that schooling is always an inherently moral activity in that children are constantly learning, and expanding, sets of social values in school - they are learning how they are expected to be and act as students and citizens, while at the same time forcing adults to expand their own expectations. This constant moral education resides not in the content of the curriculum but in the everyday interactions between teachers and students. In this ethnographic exploration of school morality, Brian McCadden describes how these interactions occur and what moral meanings Mrs. Hooper, a kindergarten teacher, and her students make from them. He explores how morality is constructed in school. His aim is to demystify the process of constructing morality so that it may become a more overt, thoughtful, and purposeful aspect of schooling.

In Perpetual Motion is an «historical choreography» of power, pedagogy, and the child from the 1600s to the early 1900s. It breaks new ground by historicizing the analytics of power and motion that have interpenetrated renditions of the young. Through a detailed examination of the works of John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Johann Herbart, and G. Stanley Hall, this book maps the discursive shifts through which the child was given a unique nature, inscribed in relation to reason, imbued with an effectible interiority, and subjected to theories of power and motion. The book illustrates how developmentalist visions took hold in U.S. public school debates. It documents how particular theories of power became submerged and taken for granted as essences inside the human subject. In Perpetual Motion studiously challenges views of power as in or of the gaze, tracing how different analytics of power have been used to theorize what gazing could notice.

Growing Up in Kenya: Rural Schooling and Girls reveals the clash between the traditional values and roles of women and the school culture and expectations. Traditionally, women were brought up to value the roles of wife, mother, and cultivator. This book shows the struggle rural girls experience as they try to fit into these traditional roles while meeting the expectations of the school curriculum. Although education is central to a woman’s status, because it affects every other aspect of her life, studies indicate that parents have lower occupational aspirations for their daughters than for their sons. This is true for higher socio-economic groups as well as when the daughters’ academic performance is superior to that of the sons’.

The impact and influence of their school experiences and of their teachers on children and their subsequent beliefs and values are unknown. This book attempts to capture what is in the hearts and minds of teachers and mentors as they provide mind-forming experiences for children. In their own voices, teachers describe why the environment is an important component of their educational practice – why it is even more important than traditional school subjects such as science. Conservative moral principles, not unbridled emotions, guide their behavior as responsible professionals who care deeply about children and their future.

Problem-posing with Multicultural Children’s Literature documents an ongoing qualitative study of early childhood teachers using a problem-posing method with multicultural children’s literature. Grounded in critical theory, the text has been written for use in upper-division undergraduate- and graduate-level classes that study infants, toddlers, preschoolers, kindergartners, and students in grades one and two. The book uses examples from both early childhood and elementary teacher education students, and practicing teachers’ work as they study critical literacy, multicultural children’s literature, and integrated early childhood curriculum. This structure provides insights into guided research in child development, cultural and linguistic contexts, learning theory, strategies for teaching young children, family advocacy, and all related aspects of early childhood teacher education as the learners move through the activities.

This story began in an educational setting where two children who were physically and culturally different experienced conflict on a daily basis. Peley’s family emigrated from Cambodia and Vietnam, Raji’s from Bombay. Both children struggled throughout their first year of formal education in a predominately white suburban school district. Social and academic problems developed during work and play, formal literacy learning, holidays and celebrations, and home/school communications. Their teacher, Ms. Starr, also struggled as she tried to understand the two children and their families, watching helplessly as Peley and Raji became isolated in the kindergarten program. At the end of this compelling account, specific classroom recommendations are offered to present and future educators.