Early Childhood Education: Society and Culture

Front Cover
Angela Anning, Joy Cullen, Marilyn Fleer
SAGE, May 25, 2004 - Education - 226 pages
`Early Childhood Education represents an enormously rich body of research and expertise focused on the objective of taking into account the social, historical and cultural dimensions of everyday activities in order to better understand children. It is a book that will undoubtedly be of interest and value to anyone with a similar concern' - Early Years

`Early Childhood Education: Society and Culture is an international state-of-the-art early childhood education publication that sets out research-based evidence and critically links this with theory and practice. It is pitched at the graduate level and beyond. Readers will gain more from the book if they have a thorough base understanding of relevant learning and social-cultural theories and an open-mind to appreciate the perspectives presented in this book' - Childforum, New Zealand

Adopter's Comments

`Good points - very up-to-date and relevant to practitioners'

`In the plethora of books written about early years education, this is one that appeals to me at an intellectual level and offer the very connecting themes I introduce to students'

`I thought this was an excellent up-to-date text book'

`Particularly useful for cross cultural studies for both undergraduates and postgraduates. Especially useful to have the pedagogy of play chapters. The strength of the text is the socio cultural perspectives and conceptual frameworks'

This book presents social and cultural perspectives on current theories of learning in early childhood education. It sets out research-based evidence linking theory and practice in early childhood settings. The editors and contributors are eminent figures in the field of early childhood education. The book extends a strong and traditional theme - the importance of the child's perspective and respect for each child's individual background.

Within the context of early years settings, the book is structured around four overall themes:

} the dynamics of learning and teaching

} the nature of knowledge

} assessment

} evaluation and quality.

This book is essential reading for undergraduate and advanced courses in early childhood studies.

 

Contents

Research contexts across cultures
1
Conceptualisations of learning and pedagogy in early years settings
17
Developing a pedagogy of play
19
Scaffolding learning and coconstructing understandings
31
Exploring critical constructivist perspectives on childrens learning
43
The nature of knowledge in early years settings
55
The coconstruction of an early childhood curriculum
57
Adults coconstructing professional knowledge
69
Mapping the transformation of understanding
119
Evaluation and quality in early years settings
135
Quality teaching in the early years
137
Questioning evaluation quality in early childhood
149
Multiple pathways between home and school literacies
159
Conclusion
173
A framework for conceptualising early childhood education
175
Glossary
191

Building bridges between literacies
80
Assessment in early years settings
93
The consequences of sociocultural assessment
95
Onentry baseline assessment across cultures
107
Bibliography
193
Index
217
Copyright

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About the author (2004)

Angela Anning is Emeritus Professor of Early Childhood Education at the University of Leeds, where she worked for seventeen years in the School of Education. Her professional background is in early childhood education, particularly in inner cities. Her research interests include professional knowledge and practice in integrated services for children. In the last five years she has been a member of the National Evaluation of Sure Start team based at Birkbeck College, London.

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