Equity and quality in the early years of schooling

For most of the latter part of the twentieth century, the issues of quality and equity have been part of the agenda of compulsory schooling in Australia. However it is only more recently that the two have been brought together, which has drawn attention to the quest to create high quality and high equity schooling. The outcomes of this union have been the focus of analyses undertaken using data from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which show that several features of Nordic secondary schools have produced high quality and high equity schooling. This article concentrates on the early years of school and considers the role of curriculum and syllabus documents in creating high quality and high equity in the early years, including the non-compulsory prior-to-school year. It draws on recent research in education generally to identify issues of significance that are instructive in the quest to produce high quality and high equity schooling in the early years. These issues include equity of access, syllabus design and curriculum, and transition to school; but before they are considered, I discuss the context of moves to create high quality and high equity schooling.

Nature's experiment? Handedness and early childhood development

In recent years a large body of research has investigated the various factors affecting child development and the consequent impact of child development on future educational and labour market outcomes. In this article we contribute to this literature by investigating the effect of handedness on a child and given recent research demonstrating that child development strongly affects adult outcomes. Using a large nationally representative sample of young children we find that the probability of a child being left-handed is not significantly related to child health at birth, family composition, parental employment or household income. We also find robust evidence that left-handed (and mixed handed) children perform significantly worse in nearly all measures of development than right-handed children with the relative disadvantage being larger for boys than girls. Importantly these differentials cannot be explained by different socioeconomic characteristics of the household, parental attitudes or investments in learning resources.

Participatory Learning in the Early Years : Research and Pedagogy

The early years are an important period for learning, but the questions surrounding participatory learning amongst toddlers remain under-examined. This book presents the latest theoretical and research perspectives about how ECEC (Early Childhood Education and Care) contexts promote democracy and citizenship through participatory learning approaches. The contributors provide insight into national policies, provisions, and practices and advance our understandings of theory and research on toddlers’ experiences for democratic participation across a number of countries, including the UK, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Sweden, and Norway.

Young Children and the Environment : Early Learning for Sustainability

This world-first text book on early childhood edcuation for sustainabilty tackles one of the biggest contemporary issues of our times - the changing environmment - and demonstrates how early education can contribute to sustainable living. An essential text for students in early childhood teacher education and a practcial resource for child care practitioners and primary school teachers, it is designed to promote edcuation for sustainabilty from birth to eight years. the text refers to national and international initiatives such as 'sustainable Schools', 'Child Friendly Cities' and 'Health Promoting Schools' and explores their existing and potential links with early childhood education. Groundbreaking content draws on recent literature in the areas of organisational, educational and cultural chnage, and environmental sustainabilty. Specific chapters explore ethical challenges and the use of ICT to advance learning. Case studies and vignettes exemplify leadership in practice and 'provocations' are integrated throughout to inspire new ways of thinking about the environment, the wider world, young children and the transformative power of early edcuation.

Case-control study of early childhood caries in Australia

The aim of this case-control study of 617 children was to investigate early childhood caries (ECC) risk indicators in a non-fluoridated region in Australia. ECC cases were recruited from childcare facilities, public hospitals and private specialist clinics to source children from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Non-ECC controls were recruited from the same childcare facilities. A multinomial logistic modelling approach was used for statistical analysis. The results showed that a large percentage of children tested positive for Streptococcus mutans if their mothers also tested positive. A common risk indicator found in ECC children from childcare facilities and public hospitals was visible plaque (OR 4.1, 95% CI 1.0-15.9, and OR 8.7, 95% CI 2.3-32.9, respectively). Compared to ECC-free controls, the risk indicators specific to childcare cases were enamel hypoplasia (OR 4.2, 95% CI 1.0-18.3), difficulty in cleaning child's teeth (OR 6.6, 95% CI 2.2-19.8), presence of S. mutans (OR 4.8, 95% CI 0.7-32.6), sweetened drinks (OR 4.0, 95% CI 1.2-13.6) and maternal anxiety (OR 5.1, 95% CI 1.1-25.0). Risk indicators specific to public hospital cases were S. mutans presence in child (OR 7.7, 95% CI 1.3-44.6) or mother (OR 8.1, 95% CI 0.9-72.4), ethnicity (OR 5.6, 95% CI 1.4-22.1), and access of mother to pension or health care card (OR 20.5, 95% CI 3.5-119.9). By contrast, a history of chronic ear infections was found to be protective for ECC in childcare children (OR 0.28, 95% CI 0.09-0.82). The biological, socioeconomic and maternal risk indicators demonstrated in the present study can be employed in models of ECC that can be usefully applied for future longitudinal studies.

Reflections on the national trial of the draft Early Years Learning Framework and Educator's Guide

To promote and support informed discussion, we look here at the experiences of some services in the national trial of the draft Early Years Learning Framework, and the more recent trial of the supporting draft Educator's Guide. Reflecting on these experiences, the paper offers some examples of how a service can 'get started' with the EYLF.

Departures from tradition : the early years learning framework for Australia

In 2009, the Commonwealth Government of Australia published the first national learning framework for use with children aged birth to five years. The framework marks a departure from tradition in that it emphasizes intentional teaching, learning as well as child development, a particular type of play-based learning, outcomes, and equity. This article analyzes aspects of the document that depart from well established approaches to early childhood education in Australia and identifies challenges for educators who are required to use the document. It concludes that ongoing and supportive professional learning opportunities must accompany the introduction and enactment of the document.

From bricks to clicks : hybrid commercial spaces in the landscape of early literacy and learning

In their quest for resources to support children’s early literacy learning and development, parents encounter and traverse different spaces in which discourses and artifacts are produced and circulated. This paper uses conceptual tools from the field of geosemiotics to examine some commercial spaces designed for parents and children which foreground preschool learning and development. Drawing on data generated in a wider study I discuss some of the ways in which the material and virtual commercial spaces of a transnational shopping mall company and an educational toy company operate as sites of encounter between discourses and artifacts about children’s early learning and parents of preschoolers. I consider how companies connect with and ‘situate’ people as parents and customers, and then offer pathways designed for parents to follow as they attempt to meet their very young children’s learning and development needs. I argue that these pathways are both material and ideological, and that are increasingly tending to lead parents to the online commercial spaces of the world wide web. I show how companies are using the online environment and hybrid offline and online spaces and flows to reinforce an image of themselves as authoritative brokers of childhood resources for parents that is highly valuable in a policy climate which foregrounds lifelong learning and school readiness.

Parents resourcing children’s early development and learning

Parents deal with a complex web of choices when seeking and using knowledge and resources related to their young children’s literacy development. Information about children’s learning and development comes in many forms and is produced by an increasingly diverse range of players including governments, nongovernment organisations and commercial businesses. This study used a survey, interview and artefact collection to investigate mothers’ and fathers’ reported activities in seeking, accessing, producing and circulating information and resources related to children’s learning and development. Differences were found relating to parent gender and level of education. Parents’ resourcing activities are also shaped by their particular goals for their children.

Educational policy for citizenship in the early years in Australia

This paper explores how young children are constructed in educational policy for citizenship in Australia, investigating tensions between early childhood educational discourses that construct young children as active citizens and the broader discourses of citizenship in Australian educational policy. There is a widespread discourse within early childhood education that regards young children as citizens and democratic participants in their own lives. This view is a reflection of the oft cited Article 12 in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC 1989). However, educational policy and curriculum for citizenship in Australia, by and large, adheres to age and stage understandings of children, implicitly deeming young children unable to conceptualise abstract ideas of what it means to ‘be a good citizen’. This paper is located in the borders and intersections between discourses of early childhood education, young children as active participants in their own lives and what it means to be an active citizen in Australia. We are concerned with the interweaving of these ideas and how they are played out in educational policy making. This is an important perspective to take for governing and policy making are exercises in harnessing existing ideas and discourses, thereby rendering strategies and tactics for managing populations thinkable and sayable (Rose 1999). The ‘views from the margins’ (Burman 2008, p. 7) can provide alternative perspectives on policymaking, illuminating discursive tactics and strategies.

Recognising Torres Strait Islander women’s knowledges in their children’s mathematics education

This paper discusses women’s involvement in their children’s mathematics education. It does, where possible, focus Torres Strait Islander women who share the aspirations of Aborginal communities around Australia. That is, they are keen for their children to receive an education that provides them with opportunities for their present and future lives. They are also keen to have their cultures’ child learning practices recognised and respected within mainstream education. This recognition has some way to go with the language of instruction in schools written to English conventions, decontextualised and disconnected to the students’ culture, Community and home language.