Disrupting Early Childhood Education Research Imagining New Possibilities [Hardcover]

Recent and increasing efforts to standardize young childrens academic performance have shifted the emphases of education toward normative practices and away from qualitative, substantive intentions. Connection to human experience, compassion for societal ailments, and the joys of learning are straining under the pressure of quantitative research, competition, and test scores, exemplified by federal funding competitions and policymaking.

Disrupting Early Childhood Education Researchcritically interrogates the traditional foundations of early childhood research practices to disrupt the status quo through imaginative, cutting-edge research in diverse U.S. and international contexts. Its chapters are driven by empirical data derived from unique research projects and a variety of contemporary methodologies that include phenomenological studies, auto-ethnographic writings, action-oriented studies, arts-based methodologies, and other innovative approaches. By giving voice to marginalized social science researchers who are active in learning, school, and early education sectors, this volume explores the meanings of actionable and everyday approaches based on the experiences of young children, their families, and educators.

Series Editor Introduction

Nicola Yelland

Foreword

Peter Moss

Chapter 1: Reaching Toward the Possible

Jeanne Marie Iorio and Will Parnell

Chapter 2: Research as an ethic of welcome and relationship: Pedagogical documentation in Reggio Emilia, Italy

Stefania Giamminuti

Chapter 3: Theorizing what it means to be pedagogical in (the) early years (of) teaching

Sandy Farquhar and Marek Tesar

Chapter 4: Critiquing traditional colonls¬