INTERNATIONALLY AND NATIONALLY, EARLY childhood education has been characterised in recent years by discussion, research, debate and policy analysis and implementation associated with the early childhood curriculum. The debates and discussions about the early childhood curriculum have been intensely interesting and focused on a range of curriculum dimensions, such as the role of content, the pedagogical role of play and the ways in which particular theoretical perspectives about children, childhood, learning and development orient the curriculum towards certain outcomes and learning emphases. In terms of policy analysis and implementation, there has been much discussion regarding the relationship between the provision of ‘quality’ early childhood education, and the use of formalised curriculum documents as a baseline for the delivery of early childhood education. These developments represent a period of refreshing growth in the early childhood sector and have led to new thinking around how, why and to what end early childhood professionals engage with young children, their families and communities to support learning in the early years. This special edition of the Australasian Journal of Early Childhood seeks to celebrate the efforts that have gone into understanding and investigating curriculum in early childhood education in recent years, and in doing so, offers a contribution to the early childhood curriculum discussion and literature that supports contemporary investigations in the area and poses some potentially new areas of investigation.
The special issue commences with an article by Pacini-Ketchabaw and Pence who engage with ideas surrounding the notion of quality early childhood curriculum. They suggest that, rather than focusing on the idea of ‘universal’ quality, it may be more productive to work towards conceptions of quality that relate to, and are informed by, the particular contexts in which a service might be located. They argue that a postmodern perspective on the early childhood curriculum may help us to realise that there is no one ‘best’ curriculum that can meet the needs of all children. Rather, working from a postmodern perspective allows educators to think about ‘possible’ curriculum and how ‘possible’ curriculum can be realised to meet the needs, aims and interests of children and families within their particular contexts. In this way curriculum is seen as being in a state of ‘permanent evaluation and change’ (Pacini-Ketchabaw and Pence, 2010). Gibbons similarly engages with the suggestion that there cannot be a universal understanding of the concept ‘curriculum’ in early childhood education. His paper suggests that the experiences both student teachers and young children bring to their learning within early years education serves to define how they experience the curriculum such that curriculum cannot be understood universally—rather as a personally constructed experience into which learners will read their own meaning.
Following these, a set of papers provides a focus on the nature of contextualised meaning-making. In these examples, the contexts are related to the interface between children’s experiences of digitally mediated contexts and popular culture as a basis for thinking about the role of curriculum in children’s lives. For example, Fleer uses a cultural-historical reading of how play activity changes over time in relation to community needs, and the way in which this may have driven curriculum development in the past. In doing so, she considers the role of technological and popular culture in children’s lives and how these connect with their daily ‘reality-based’ activities as a new way of thinking about the framing of early childhood curriculum in contemporary times. Hedges reports research findings from her investigations into children’s interactions with popular culture as funds of knowledge and considers the extent to which these funds are utilised as a driver for curriculum activity within early childhood contexts. Finally, Mawson examines what children’s independent collaborative play has to offer in terms of noting how children use and think about technological knowledge. He argues that educators with strong content and pedagogical knowledge in the area of ICTs are likely to be better equipped at incorporating these forms of play in the early childhood curriculum in a way which enables children to think critically about the role of technologies in their lives and how technology use can shape their understandings of the world. These papers offer important insights into how the early years curriculum and pedagogies associated with the early childhood curriculum might be seen to intersect with children’s experiences within digital and popularly mediated contexts within their home, family and community settings.
This theme is thoughtfully examined by Harrison in her exposition which seeks to consider the connections between the well-loved children’s television program Play School and contemporary movements within the early childhood literature which have challenged traditional discourses around children’s learning and development, and the constituents of ‘community’ and ‘family’. Harrison has made insightful links between the evolving history of Play School in relation to changing social practices and theoretical perspectives in early childhood education which are framed in relation to the national (Australian) Early Years Learning Framework.
The role and positioning of play, learning, environmental education, gender and children’s rights in early childhood curricula form the basis of the remaining two papers. In each of these papers, research surrounding the relationship between play as a pedagogical tool is linked to children’s learning experiences in relation to the Swedish national curriculum (Sandberg and Ärlemalm-Hagsér) and the Australian Early Years Learning Framework (Edwards and Cutter-Mackenzie). In her paper, Sandberg provides a review of the literature related to play and learning which links strongly to contemporary discussion around how play shapes children’s experiences within the early years of curriculum in terms of their rights to contribute to a program of activities, their experiences of gender, and the way in which they might be encouraged to think about sustainability and their role in the world. Issues around teaching and learning about sustainability in the early years are also examined in Edwards and Cutter-Mackenzie’s paper which reports research findings investigating the ways in which play-based learning might be articulated to the teaching and learning of environmental education within the early childhood curriculum.
As the contributions to this special edition show, the early childhood curriculum is increasingly understood as a site for constructing meaning and learning derived from children’s family, social and cultural experiences. Context is becoming an increasingly important mediator for understanding and thinking about curriculum, particularly in terms of what is it young children bring to the curriculum from their contexts—but also in terms of the way curriculum can be used to help children understand, engage and critically reflect on these contexts (whether these involve their experiences of digital media, popular culture, gender, technologies and/or perspectives on sustainability). The arguments and agendas that emerge from this collection of papers suggest future potential for research, policy development and implementation and early childhood practice to consider the many ways in which the emerging relationships between curriculum, contemporary perspectives on learning and development and children’s family, community and digitally mediated contexts might continue to inform each other as a basis for thinking about learning and teaching in the early years.
Susan Edwards and Jennifer Sumsion
Don't forget, Australasian Journal of Early Childhood is tax deductible for early childhood professionals
You can purchase this issue of the Australasian Journal of Early Childhood now.
| Vol. 36 No 1 February 2010 |
Other editions of the Australasian Journal of Early Childhood |
Don't forget, Australasian Journal of Early Childhood is tax deductible for early childhood professionals
You can purchase this issue of the Australasian Journal of Early Childhood now.
| Vol. 36 No 1 February 2010 |
Other editions of the Australasian Journal of Early Childhood |
