Search

Rhymes are popular tools in children's learning in many cultures, but the pedagogical underpinnings of rhyme practice are largely unknown. Drawing on insights from a study in China, this paper explores the pedagogical meaning and function of rhymes in early childhood education. Individual interviews were conducted with 10 Chinese early childhood teachers and a series of classroom observations of teachers' rhyme practices were undertaken. An overarching theme from the data was the multifunctionality of rhymes, or in teachers' words 'they can do many things'. Framed by the notion of tools in sociocultural theory and existing studies on rhymes as a pedagogical tool, this theme is discussed with reference to the discourses on mediation, habitual practice, and professional support which bring to the fore some issues in Chinese early childhood education.

This research investigates early childhood student teachers' learning in a picture book elective at a Chinese university. The elective was designed as an educational reform that encouraged students' choices, interests, and active explorations. Drawing on the concept of deep active learning (DAL), the research aims to identify whether and how these young adults adopted the deep active approach to learning. Data sources included student questionnaires, student interviews, and an interview with the course lecturer. The analysis identifies the tension between students' DAL capabilities and DAL experiences, illustrating the difficulty in making reforms in a single course, due to the influence of student accustomed learning style, the general learning environment, and student career plans.

Critical reflection on practice is a hallmark of professionalism in early childhood education. In the Australian context, reflection is highlighted as a principle in the national curriculum framework. This paper focuses on the professional learning of early childhood educators by drawing on a pedagogy of discomfort, an approach that aims to disorientate learners through unsettling their taken-for-granted assumptions and engaging them in collegial deliberation. Interview data from 13 early childhood educators who participated in a Reflective Practice Research Project was analysed to identify disjuncture, deliberation and moments of transformational learning. The findings point to the changes in practice reported by the participants. Barriers and mediators to learning and participation in the project are noted along with the important role reflection plays in teachers' professional learning. We argue that a well-designed and well-delivered professional learning program can lead to a change in disposition and accordingly transformative learning for participants.

The notion of learning dispositions has extended conceptions of learning in early childhood education to incorporate dimensions such as habits of mind and patterns of behaviour. This paper conceptualizes learning dispositions through a Chinese lens, and with conceptualizing this notion, explores associated pedagogical practices. The data are drawn from the field notes in an early childhood classroom and focus group interviews with sixteen early childhood teachers and three early childhood experts. The evidence indicates that disposition is an essential component on the participants' construction of children's learning as well as a deliberate focus of teachers' teaching. However, it is also revealed that children's learning dispositions are something of paradox, offering the potential of a learner-centred pedagogy and yet are grounded in teaching plans, prescribed goals and specific activities. Findings interrogate the positioning of learning dispositions in relation to the wider discourse of children's learning in the Chinese early childhood context.

The current focus on child-centred learning in the Chinese early childhood education sector is accompanied by calls to enhance children's group experiences. Aims of the present study include understanding the meaning of 'group' in Chinese children's learning, as well as the ways in which children experience groups in the social pedagogic contexts of their early childhood classrooms. Drawing on the tri-partite perspectives of Chinese preschool children, their parents and teachers, this qualitative study revealed that within and between these perspectives there were tensions as to how the notion of 'group' was valued in individual children's learning. Findings indicated some consensus among the perspectives but they also highlighted the complexity and diversity inherent in the understandings of children's learning. The study raises questions relating to the resources, opportunities and teaching approaches in children's social pedagogic contexts.

The 2014 national curriculum of Australia is a significant initiative that the Australian government has taken in proposing a curriculum that stresses Australia's engagement with Asia. In practice, this means that Asian cultures, beliefs, environments and the connections between Australia and Asia are embedded in the learning processes of Australian schools. This article provides an analysis of Australia's engagement with Asia, which is a cross-curriculum priority in the Australian curriculum. In particular, using the example of China, the article examines the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis involved in Australia's engagement with Asia from an educational perspective, especially during the global pandemic with the spread of COVID-19 affecting the world so significantly. The intent of this analysis is to map out the educational factors involved and consider what might happen to Australian students and schools as a result of their engagement with the educational cultures, beliefs and practices of China. This is connected to the two countries' economic engagements and people-to-people ties. By considering some of the current discourses that shape the Australia-China relationships, possibilities are opening up to rethink educational positions.

In this study, we are looking for insights into children's learning in Japanese kindergartens from the perspectives and experiences of kindergarten teachers and children. Combining research on early childhood education in Japan and the capabilities approach, the findings indicate that children's learning is situated within a dynamic praxis, involving relationships, rules, and responsibilities. The study argues for the utility of going beyond children's agency and free choice to explore the structural, functional, and relational contexts which give rise to them.

This paper explores a teaching and learning process as it unfolds in an online offshore classroom. The paper reports on teaching and learning narratives distilled from different cultures, namely the cultures of educators and students in the context of digital learning environments. Drawing on activity theory as a conceptual framework to analyse the narrative, we employ self-study as a methodological tool for capturing the dynamism and complexities that unravel in intercultural and technology-enabled teaching activities. The framework explores the relationships, tensions and opportunities of diverse activity elements that constitute the design and delivery of digital pedagogies. In the networked intercultural system, sustaining the position of activity elements and the specific relational circuit that they institutionalise is a key task for understanding digital technologies as an influential tool for effective learning and teaching practices. We argue that seeing the digital platform from the perspective of its role in creating dynamic interrelationships in a complex activity system is one way to move beyond the cultural confines of any particular element in the system.

This study addresses children's Kyoiku (education) as it is explored by two kindergartens in Japan. It reports how the teachers, parents and children defined and experienced children's education and draws on the sociocultural concepts to understand their perspectives. Situated in the personal, educational, and sociocultural landscape of the educational environment, the analysis foregrounds a lens to identify the influences on children's education. The focus on children's education in this study enables the threads of different perspectives within the fabric of the kindergartens and Japanese contexts to be shared. The findings reveal that theorising about children's education invites scholarship that takes as axiomatic the complexity and distinctiveness of individual children, their families and the Japanese social and cultural dynamics.

This article explores parents' perspectives of children's learning, drawing on a comparative research project with a focus on survey data from 200 preschool parents in Japan and China. The findings were compared between the two countries in order to identify common and distinct perspectives in terms of what and how children learn in the families and preschools, and parents' expectations and concerns. Emphasised in the analysis was the importance of situating parents' perspectives within different contexts, acknowledging the subjective, contextual and diverse conceptions of children's learning.

This paper focuses on early childhood teachers' professional development in China. It reports a study which aims to elicit twelve in-service early childhood teachers' perspectives of the values and issues of professional development policies and the learning opportunities they experienced. Two themes arising from the study are addressed, namely the teachers' positive responses to the government aspirations for enhancing teaching in early childhood education, and the complexities of the organizational and role structures of the early childhood community in ChangChun where the study took place. An important aspect of the teachers' perspectives of their professional development, which connects up to the early childhood environment in ChangChun, is the view that professional development was oriented to their own employment continuity. Teachers' learning was perceived as a useful means to offset the insecurity of their careers, but not closely related to children's learning.

This comparative study investigated the experiences of starting childcare of three immigrant children in three different learning environments in New Zealand. The notion of learning environment was explored as a way of thinking about how different people, places, and approaches to learning have interacted to create a particular site for the children's beginning experiences in early childhood settings. The study sheds light on multiple perceptions and experiences with regard to immigrant children and their learning. Child observations, child interviews, and teacher and parent interviews were conducted in each child's setting. Findings suggest that early childhood environments played a critical role in supporting immigrant children's transition from homes to early childhood centres if they were informed by the principles of familiarity, care, and collaboration. Immigrant children's motivation to drive their own learning also provoked reflection on education both in New Zealand and other immigrant-receiving countries such as Canada, the United States, and Australia.

The notion of agency is being used with increasing frequency in early childhood policies, replacing traditional assumptions about young children's immaturity and their role as mere recipients of adults' arrangements. Agency is thus both an educational aspiration as well as a signifier of a strong rights-based political commitment to countering views of children as immature and incompetent. This article develops the argument that agency is inherently a sociocultural product that is driven by children's clear attempts to bond with others and to develop a sense of belonging. Using examples of the everyday experiences of two Chinese immigrant children in an early childhood centre, the article considers ways in which agency was exercised by the children in an unfamiliar sociocultural setting because they wanted to belong. Some crucial issues are highlighted for practice and policy development in the area of immigrant children's education, arguing that the shaping of early childhood education requires an attention to children's 'invisible' capabilities, needs to belong and 'small' everyday life realities.