Liz Brooker - Böcker

"This is a unique portrait of a group of working-class families whose 4 year old children start school on the cusp of the millenium in urban Britain. It is a brilliant analysis of ways in which parents, children and teachers strive to cross cultural and linguistic boundaries to come to a common understanding of 'school'. Beautifully written, it is essential reading for all involved in the education of young children." - Eve Gregory, Professor of Language and Culture in Education, Goldsmiths, University of London."This book will challenge and support practitioners in their quest to improve early childhood practice. The use of theory is 'friendly' and the real-life examples of the experiences of young children and their parents really bring home to the reader the experience of inequality. Readers will rarely find a book which expresses the complexity of educational experience in such an accessible form. This is a valuable book for every level of early years training." - Iram Siraj-Blatchford, Professor of Early Childhood Education, Institute of Education, University of London.* How does the home experience of children from poor and ethnic minority communities influence their adaptation to school?* How does the traditional 'child-centred' and progressive pedagogy of early years classrooms meet the needs of children from culturally diverse backgrounds?Starting School seeks to address these key questions by tracing the learning experiences of individual children from a poor inner-urban neighbourhood - half of them from Bangladeshi families - as they acquire the knowledge appropriate to their home culture and then take this knowledge to their reception class. The book highlights the small differences in family life - in parenting practices, in perspectives on childhood, and in beliefs about work and play - which make a big difference to children's adaptations to school. In other words, it shows how children succeed and fail from their early days at school. It shows too how the 'good intentions' of good teachers can sometimes allow children from certain backgrounds to become disaffected, and learn to fail; and it suggests ways of working with children from working class and multicultural families which may help both children and parents to gain a better understanding of school learning in the UK.

"The text is wide-ranging and discusses different approaches and examples of good practice in supporting transition, from around the world. ... Supporting Transitions in the Early Years gives early years practitioners a real insight into the theory that should underpin high quality everyday practice for everyone engaging with young children."Early Years Update

Supporting Transitions in the Early Years explores the whole range of early childhood transitions, rather than simply looking at starting school or pre-school. It helps parents, practitioners, policy-makers and Early Years students at every level, to understand and support the successive transitions made by young children from birth to five.

Starting from a discussion of the rapid pace of change in current societies, and children's need to acquire flexibility and resilience in adapting to change, it offers examples of transitions such as:

Babies and toddlers moving into under-3s carePre-schoolers moving into schoolReception children moving into formal learning classroomsSupport for the transitions of children with English as an additional language or special needsAt each stage, individual case studies are discussed in relation to relevant theories of development and learning, and contemporary perspectives on children's well-being and children's rights. The international case studies offer clear examples of the ways that adults in high-quality settings can work together with parents to strengthen children's positive dispositions.

The book highlights key qualities - resilience, resourcefulness and reciprocity - which adults should seek to foster in children, to facilitate their current transitions and prepare them for a future of change. The author also underlines the importance of listening to children from birth onwards, if we are to offer the kind of caring and educative environments that will best support their well-being.

Technologies are a pervasive feature of contemporary life for adults and children. However, young children’s experiences with digital technologies are often the subject of polarised debate among parents, educators, policymakers and social commentators, particularly since the advent of tablets and smartphones changed access to the Internet and the nature of interactions with digital resources. Some are opposed to children’s engagement with digital resources, concerned that the activities they afford are not developmentally appropriate, limit physical activity and restrict the development of social skills. Others welcome digital technologies which they see as offering new and enhanced ways of learning and sharing knowledge. Despite this level of popular and policy interest in young children’s interactions with digital technologies our understanding of the influence of these technologies on playing and learning, and on the role of educators, has remained surprisingly limited. The contributions to this book fill in the gaps of our existing understanding of the field. They focus on children and families from Australia to England to Estonia, the how and why of encounters with digital technologies, the nature of digital play and questions about practice and practitioners. The book raises critical questions and offers new understandings and theoretical insights around one of the ‘hot topics’ in early years research. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Early Years journal.

Early Childhood Education in the United States is rife with contradictions, critique and innovation. It is a time when a status quo – characterized by systemic, historic discrimination; teacher de-professionalization; 'teaching to the test'; and attacks on funding – is challenged by new technologies, new literacies and transformative and critical perspectives and practices that defy assumptions and biases to create cutting-edge, diverse instantiations of Early Childhood Education for children, families, and teachers.This volume, based on a special issue of the Early Years journal written in 2016 before the new administration announced its policies, aims to generate conversations about developments in Early Childhood Education, situated within classist/racist/linguicist and neoliberal contexts, and to analyze critically where we are, where we might go and what we might do. It is also an opportunity to share counter-narratives to the dominant narratives promulgated by many, convinced that narrow, destructive norms of appropriate practice, standards, and accountability, as well as the curtailed achievement of children of Color, those from low income communities, and emergent bilinguals are ‘common sense’. These counter-narratives – some about transformational projects that have generated innovative perspectives and practices, and some detailing critical analyses and projects that go beyond to explore issues of power – contest education that disprivileges some children and families while advocating education that is child- and family-centered, culturally relevant and sustaining, equitable and democratic. Our hope is that this work creates a 'space of dialogue and human action' needed even more urgently today. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Early Years journal.

Early Childhood Education in the United States is rife with contradictions, critique and innovation. It is a time when a status quo – characterized by systemic, historic discrimination; teacher de-professionalization; 'teaching to the test'; and attacks on funding – is challenged by new technologies, new literacies and transformative and critical perspectives and practices that defy assumptions and biases to create cutting-edge, diverse instantiations of Early Childhood Education for children, families, and teachers.This volume, based on a special issue of the Early Years journal written in 2016 before the new administration announced its policies, aims to generate conversations about developments in Early Childhood Education, situated within classist/racist/linguicist and neoliberal contexts, and to analyze critically where we are, where we might go and what we might do. It is also an opportunity to share counter-narratives to the dominant narratives promulgated by many, convinced that narrow, destructive norms of appropriate practice, standards, and accountability, as well as the curtailed achievement of children of Color, those from low income communities, and emergent bilinguals are ‘common sense’. These counter-narratives – some about transformational projects that have generated innovative perspectives and practices, and some detailing critical analyses and projects that go beyond to explore issues of power – contest education that disprivileges some children and families while advocating education that is child- and family-centered, culturally relevant and sustaining, equitable and democratic. Our hope is that this work creates a 'space of dialogue and human action' needed even more urgently today. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Early Years journal.

Technologies are a pervasive feature of contemporary life for adults and children. However, young children’s experiences with digital technologies are often the subject of polarised debate among parents, educators, policymakers and social commentators, particularly since the advent of tablets and smartphones changed access to the Internet and the nature of interactions with digital resources. Some are opposed to children’s engagement with digital resources, concerned that the activities they afford are not developmentally appropriate, limit physical activity and restrict the development of social skills. Others welcome digital technologies which they see as offering new and enhanced ways of learning and sharing knowledge. Despite this level of popular and policy interest in young children’s interactions with digital technologies our understanding of the influence of these technologies on playing and learning, and on the role of educators, has remained surprisingly limited. The contributions to this book fill in the gaps of our existing understanding of the field. They focus on children and families from Australia to England to Estonia, the how and why of encounters with digital technologies, the nature of digital play and questions about practice and practitioners. The book raises critical questions and offers new understandings and theoretical insights around one of the ‘hot topics’ in early years research. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Early Years journal.

Early childhood provision for babies and toddlers is in a critical phase. While governments are pushing for fast-paced expansion, mainly to support the return of mothers to the labour market, early childhood experts are deeply concerned about the quality of provision on offer for children up to age three. Research has consistently demonstrated that well-qualified educators are a crucial component towards ensuring a climate of sensitivity and responsiveness to individual children – and thus a central ingredient of high quality provision. However, national policy choices regarding required professional education/training and required resources for supporting the well-being and learning opportunities of very young children are highly variable. The chapters in this book approach the topic of professional work with very young children in diverse ways, employing varying theoretical frameworks, research foci and research methodologies. They illustrate starkly divergent policy contexts, in this case predominantly European, with research located in Belgium, France, Finland, Italy, Sweden and the UK, but also in South Africa and the USA.This book will be of interest to those conducting research into provision for infants and toddlers, both at the micro-level of relationships and settings and at the macro-level of policy paradigms. Potential readers also include practitioners and prospective managers and leaders of early childhood centres, as well as those offering initial and postgraduate early years teacher education and continuing professional development courses.This book was originally published as a special issue of Early Years.