Authors:Teresa K. Aslanian, Lynn J. McNair, Sacha Powell Pages: 1 - 5 Abstract: This editorial for special issue part 1 on the pedagogy of Friedrich Froebel situates the articles in the context of the Global Education Reform Movement. It highlights the contributions made to contemporary research and practice in early childhood education, and advancing understanding of a Froebelian approach. PubDate: 2022-03-19 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 1 (2022)
Authors:Maria Cooper, Carrey Tik-Sze Siu, Mary Benson McMullen, Jean Rockel, Sacha Powell Pages: 6 - 23 Abstract: Infant and toddler pedagogy has flourished as a specialized area of practice in early childhood care and education settings, yet it remains an under-researched area. There is also limited empirical research internationally that explores cultural meanings of meaningful provision for this young age group. This ethnographic study explored pedagogies of care with 1-year olds in four cultures—England, United States, New Zealand and Hong Kong—guided by Froebel’s education philosophy and a view of pedagogies of care as embodiments of culture. The researchers employed sociocultural and ecological theoretical perspectives (Darling, 2016) to attend to cultural meanings at the micro, macro and temporal levels in relation to people, contexts and processes. This lens enabled the researchers to resist the positivist tendency to normalize and unify all children’s experiences and maintain the integrity of diverse interpretations. Inspired by Tobin et al.’s (1989, 2009) cross-national research on preschool in three cultures, the researchers utilized a video-cued multivocal and layered interpretation approach to elicit the “voices” of 1-year-olds, their teachers/practitioners and families. This paper focuses on each researcher’s discussion of the ways Froebel’s principles of autonomy in learning and freedom with guidance were seen to unfold. The nuances of how these principles were manifested in pedagogies for infants and toddlers is explored in relation to each country’s curriculum and cultural ideals. PubDate: 2022-03-19 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 1 (2022)
Authors:Lynn J. McNair, Luke J. Addison, Caralyn Blaisdell, John M. Davis Pages: 24 - 37 Abstract: This paper reports on findings from a small pilot study undertaken with early years practitioners in Scotland. The Scottish Government is currently implementing its key election promise of almost doubling the entitlement to publicly funded early learning and childcare (ELC) for all three and four-year old and eligible two-year old children. A key message from the Scottish Government during this period has been that quality is at the heart of the expansion initiative (Scottish Government, 2017b). However, quality can be a contested and an ill understood concept (Moss, 2019). This pilot study, therefore, explored the perspectives of practitioners in Scotland regarding what quality in early years provision entails, particularly in this time of change and expansion. The paper will make three key arguments based on the findings from the study. First, that although quality is a much-used term in Scottish ELC settings, understandings of the term can be subjective, yet powerful and can leave practitioners with more questions than answers. Second, we argue that Fröbelian principles could ameliorate some of the issues regarding quality in Scotland, particularly in terms of combatting discrimination. Finally, we argue that those principles must be accompanied by a social justice lens in which prejudice and stereotypes are recognized, named, and unpacked and action for change taken. PubDate: 2022-03-20 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 1 (2022)
Authors:Daniel Castner, Cecilia Maron Puntarelli Pages: 38 - 53 Abstract: For early childhood educators, few individuals have more historical significance than Friedrich Froebel. Froebelian approaches traveled across the Atlantic and inspired early childhood educators in the United States during the progressive era. Although early childhood professionals in the United States still celebrate the inventor of kindergarten, his vision for early education is inevitably altered when it is interpreted within alternative linguistic, cultural and historical contexts. Authored within this American context, this article aims to recognize Froebel’s unique and contributions to early childhood education. The article has three parts. First, we resituate Froebel within his original context considering the other influential educational theorists and philosophers in 19th century Europe. We contrast continental, human science pedagogy with the many-sided progressive educational movement in the United States. Secondly, we imagine Froebel in dialogue with a contemporary director of an American early childhood center. This dialogue puts Froebel’s philosophy of education in reciprocity with contemporary discourses of policy and practice. We advance an American interpretation of Froebel that considers him much more than a precursor to progressive education. We suggest Froebel provides a uniquely humanizing perspective that is desperately needed within conditions currently dominated by GERM policies. PubDate: 2022-03-20 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 1 (2022)
Authors:Maggie MacLure, Christina MacRae Pages: 54 - 68 Abstract: The paper brings Froebel’s philosophy into conversation with that of Deleuze. We focus on the fold and on self-activity as key concepts that hold a special place in the monist philosophies of both thinkers. One point at which their (very different) ontologies coincide is their conceptualization of a cosmos in which everything is ultimately in relation. The philosophical convergences of such different thinkers in different eras are mapped in relation to the influences of a shared lineage with some earlier hermetic and romantic strains of thought. Both Froebel and Deleuze conceive of subjectivity as a relation of dynamic folding and unfolding of inner life and external world. The fold, as the operation that brings outside and inside together in a unitary system, counters the dualisms that still tend to structure thought: for instance, ideal/material, intelligible/sensible, nature/culture, individual/social. Reading Deleuze with Froebel helps to draw out some theoretical underpinnings of Froebel’s holism, by bringing movement, matter and the senses back into focus and rethinking the relation between children and their environment in learning and development. We discuss some empirical examples of what this might look like from a current research project, focusing on imitation as one example of the fold between the inner life and the outer worlds of young children. In particular, we are interested in exploring how Froebel’s conception of imitation as a dynamic and metamorphic act of self-transformation might share some affinities with the concept of becoming developed by Deleuze and Guattari. PubDate: 2022-03-29 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 1 (2022)
Authors:Helen May Pages: 69 - 84 Abstract: Miss Isabel Little was a Scottish infant teacher who immigrated to New Zealand in 1912. She was described as a “Froebel trained Scot from Edinburgh” and known around Wellington education circles for her “modern methods”. In contrast to known Froebelian pioneers, Miss Little’s historical footprint is light but the few glimpses yield insights useful to consider in current times. Miss Little is described in this article as a forgotten Froebelian foot soldier who, like others were the mainstay of a kindergarten movement that transformed the early education of children. Individual and collective advocacy, as demonstrated by Miss Little a century ago, are evident in current times. The political and pedagogical context of early years education has changed in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) but there are still battles to be won. Coinciding with the consequences of COVID-19 in 2020 was the government’s intended roll-out of He Taonga te Tamaiti – Early learning action plan 2019-2029, creating calls for a strategic rethink: to hasten rather than slow down its implementation. Connecting these stories, past and present, was accidental as they collided into the space of the author’s life during a stern lockdown that mainly halted the virus at the border. More broadly they epitomize the stretch and potency of Froebelian principles across centuries and places. PubDate: 2022-03-29 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 1 (2022)
Authors:Tansy Watts Pages: 85 - 100 Abstract: A contemporary concern about children’s loss of contact with the natural world accompanies an ongoing urbanization and their reduced independent mobility. Children are becoming increasingly reliant on adults in accessing outdoor play and this is giving rise to more such experiences being shared. This research has explored the contemporary contribution of Froebelian holistic pedagogy through which child, adult and natural environment relations are understood as mutually beneficial. An exploration has been undertaken through preschool organized family trips to nature sites in a suburban English context. Sensory ethnography (Pink, 2009) has framed use of child-worn Go-Pros™ on trips by ten children between two and four-years old. This footage has then formed the basis for sensory elicitation interviews with parents in which we revisit shared experience from their child’s point-of-view. These parallel perspectives have been analyzed through use of a vocabulary of holistic relations drawn from the theory of the evolution of human consciousness (Gebser, 1949) The potential is highlighted for children to draw adults into sensory experiences, big questions and storied relations with surroundings which can balance the potential for adults to draw children into abstract relations with a global context. Each is equally significant in forming rich, continuous connections between individuals and whole and can highlight the potential offered by Froebel’s pedagogy in support of a sustainability agenda. This is through its orientation to a vision of the whole and significance of our own holistic capacities as everyday activism within this. PubDate: 2022-03-29 Issue No:Vol. 9, No. 1 (2022)
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