Going Beyond the Theory/Practice Divide in Early Childhood Education: Introducing an Intra-Active Pedagogy

ISBN-13: 9780415464444 / Angielski / Twarda / 2009 / 202 str.

Hillevi Lenz-Taguchi

Opis

Going Beyond the Theory/Practice Divide in Early Childhood Education focuses on the use of pedagogical documentation as a tool for learning and transformation. Based on innovative research, the author presents new approaches to learning in early childhood education, shifting attention to the force and impact which material objects and artefacts can have in learning. Drawing upon the theories of feminist Karen Barad and philosophers Gille Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Hillevi Lenz Taguchi discusses examples of how pens, paper, clay and construction materials can be understood as active and performative agents, challenging binary divides such as theory/practice, discourse/matter and mind/body in teaching and learning. Numerous examples from practice are explored to introduce an intra-active pedagogy. 'Methodological' strategies for learning with children in preschools, and in teacher education, are brought to the fore. For example:

• the neighbourhood around the preschool and children's homes is explored, using drawing and construction-work on the floor;
• mathematics is investigated in teacher education, using the body, dance and music to investigate mathematical relationships and problems;
• taken-for-granted forms of academic writing are challenged by different forms of praxis- and experience-based writings that transgress the theory/practice divide;
• children, students and teacher educators use pedagogical documentation to understand their own learning, and to critique dominant habits of thinking and doing.

Challenging the dominant understanding of 'inclusion' in educational contexts, and making 'difference' actively visible and positive, this book is rooted in the experiences, practices and words of teachers, teacher educators and student teachers. It will appeal to all those involved in early childhood education and also to those interested in challenging educational thinking and practices.

Doing Justice in Early Childhood Education is based on innovative research in to new approaches to the education of early childhood teachers. The central theme is identifying the gaps needing to be bridged to achieve a more inclusive and ‘just’ early childhood education, in relation to class/social position, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race, disabilities and age.

The book explores various ways of bridging these gaps. For example,

• mathematics is investigated using the body, dance and music to investigate mathematical relationships and problems;
• different forms of experience-based narrative writing are used to understand theories as well as documented practices in early childhood education;
• students and teachers use ‘deconstructive talks’ to make visible dominant discourses about childhood, learning and power production

In this reconceptualized teacher education, difference - in the understandings of individual students and in their multiple subjectivities as learners - is not something to be overcome. Instead it is actively made visible and used. This can be understood as an enforcement of ‘justice’ in education, and also challenges the dominant understanding of inclusion in educational contexts.

This book is not just about theory. It is rooted in examples of the experiences, practices and words of student teachers and will be of great value to undergraduate and postgraduate students of early childhood education.

Spis treści

Introduction  1. Going beyond the theory/practice and discourse/matter divides  2. Learning and becoming in an onto-epistemology  3. The tool of pedagogical documentation  4. An intra-active pedagogy and its dual movements  5. Transgressing binary practices in Early Childhood Teacher Education  6. The hybrid-writing-process – going beyond the theory/practice divide in academic writing 7. An ethics of immanence and potentialities for early childhood education  References

O autorze

Hillevi Lenz Taguchi is an Associate Professor at the Department of Education, Stockholm University, Sweden.