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The AJEC Committee invites readers' thoughts on the matters raised in this editorial, as well as elsewhere within the journal. Letters to the editor, enquiries, comments, submissions and contributions can be sent to publishing@earlychildhood.org.au.
People experience many changes throughout their lives. With some of these changes, it is very difficult—if not impossible—to return from the new state to the previous one. In general, patterns of interactions, and the sites of these interactions, change so dramatically that going back is not possible. It is these changes that we call transitions.
In this edition of AJEC, we consider educational transitions with many different destinations: child care, school and the early childhood education profession. The nature of the transitions at these points can have a significant impact on future development and learning. When we talk about educational transitions in this sense, we are talking about more than change. For example, changing from a group activity to an individual activity during the day is often called a transition. These changes are no doubt important, but they are not the focus of this edition of the journal.
Various aspects of children's transition to school are featured in six of the eight papers in this edition. As well, many of these papers reflect the burgeoning respect that is being given to children's as well as adults' reflections on these transitions. Yeo and Clarke asked Primary Five children in Singapore to interview Primary One children about starting school, with results that have both differences and similarities with those of previous studies. Also in Singapore, but with a different group of children, Ebbeck and Reus investigate the transition to a new school for a group of eight-year-old children coming from a variety of foreign situations. The extra emotional challenge provided by the new cultural setting, as well as the new school, is highlighted.
Two other particular groups of children starting school are considered in quite different ways by Whitton and Sanagavarapu and Perry. Whitton uses data from both parents and children to investigate the needs and concerns of young ‘gifted' children and their families as they start school. Sanagavarapu and Perry use data from parents concerning the transition to school of Bangladeshi children in Sydney. While there are many similarities with data obtained from more general studies, the needs of these particular groups of children are sufficiently diverse to warrant further investigation in their own right and to point to the need to investigate other groups of children as well.
Two other papers dealing with children's transition to school by Broström and Perry and Dockett consider issues around changes in what happens to children as they move from prior-to-school settings to school. These issues of curriculum continuity are critical in discussions about transition to school but are dismissed too often—in Australia particularly—seemingly because of the hegemonic influences of our monolithic education systems. Broström suggests that an advanced play process may provide continuity across the transition while Perry and Dockett record strong evidence of how the mathematical power of young children might be lost as children move into schools with formal mathematics agenda.
The paper by Guo highlights another aspect of educational transitions by reporting on the challenges facing a Chinese-speaking four-year-old boy entering a New Zealand childcare setting. In particular, Guo considers the effect of the child's English-language skills on his success in the new setting and shows that, in spite of the many challenges, the child does make progress in interacting with his peers.
In what looks like a completely different topic, Noble and Macfarlane consider the challenges facing early childhood educators as they move from teacher education student to educator and then, all too often, to burn out. They highlight the romanticisation of early childhood education in teacher education courses and the clash between this romantic image and the reality of many early childhood settings. In many ways, this parallels earlier discussions about continuity and change in transitions to school.
The papers in this collection highlight the growing importance of educational transitions and show the international interest in the topic. Papers derive from work in Australia, New Zealand, Denmark and Singapore and consider children and adults from immigrant as well as established cultures. The scope from prior-to-school to beginning educators reinforces the lifelong importance for understanding educational transitions. This collection provides an excellent resource in this search for understanding.
Bob Perry and Sue Dockett
University of Western Sydney
AJEC, Vol. 30 No. 3, September 2005, p. ii. You can purchase this issue of the Australian Journal of Early Childhood now.
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