Over the last decade, there has been increasing awareness of the importance of engaging young children in research about their experiences and considering ways in which children’s experiences, expectations and perceptions influence both their interactions and those of others. This has resulted from recognition of young children as active citizens, with rights to be consulted about matters that affect them and from the principles underpinning the sociology of childhood, which emphasizes children’s capabilities and agency. This paper explores young Australian children’s perceptions of school and learning, as expressed through drawings and conversations about school. Data from children in preschools and the early years of school highlight children’s expectations and experiences of school, including the importance of play, friendships, children’s dispositions, and academic expectations of school and teachers. Drawing on previous research that notes the long term importance of children’s attitudes and approaches, as well as their sense of belonging and identity, at the start of school, this paper has implications for adults engaging with children as they make the transition to school.
This paper considers perceptions of children’s learning and classroom practice to support learning in the Pakistani early years educational context. In Pakistan, there is a growing focus on quality provision of early childhood education and building early childhood education teacher capacity. Over the course of one academic year, data were collected from kindergarten teachers in a Pakistani urban school through interviews and classroom observations as part of a larger study. Findings presented in this paper are based on the interview data of two teachers in the sample, a novice and an experienced teacher. Data analysis examined their perceptions of kindergarten children’s learning and of their practice to support kindergarten children’s learning, taking into consideration the gender perspective. The results showed tensions in the teachers’ perceptions which contrasted between a constructivist approach and a teacher-directed skills approach. Perceptions of their practice reflected a formal, teacher-directed approach rather than a constructivist approach and a teacher-directed skills approach to teaching. Several factors, including deep-rooted perceptions as well as curriculum structure, time, number of staff and resources, contributed to this.
For centuries, educators and psychologists have advocated “play” as the ideal activity for the development of young children. Actually, play has been found currently to be the central pedagogy in the learning of young children in 21 countries in the world. However, the quality of play-based pedagogy is becoming a key concern across countries. Scholars found that play is either too loosely framed to result in children’s optimal development; or it is too “teacherly” and looses the essence of play. The recent report released by OECD highlighted its concern about play in early childhood education and, urged international researchers and educators to make efforts to bridge the gap. Hong Kong is not an exception on the issue of play enactment. Though resources have been put in for the professional upgrading of early education teachers in the last two decades, the learning and teaching style is still didactic and there appears to be a misinterpretation of play-based pedagogy. The present paper attempts to explore the issue through early childhood teachers’ conceptualization of “learning and teaching through play” with the aim of understanding the problem and shedding light for better ways to prepare teachers in this sector.
Family literacy programs in North America and the United Kingdom have enjoyed widespread public and political support. Thousands of initiatives following a variety of models currently operate under the spectrum of family literacy programs. In this paper, the influence of learning theories, the research on children’s early literacy development, and the sociopolitical context with gave rise to the intervention movement, will be reviewed with respect to their impact on current models of family literacy programs. The research on program evaluation is also considered, and is related to current practice and future directions in family literacy programming.
China is becoming an increasingly important actor in global governance. This paper contends that China participates by promoting its own global governance concepts on the one hand and by complying with the established global norms on the other. The paper introduces several key global governance concepts of the Chinese government and argues that they are likely to persist due to their roots in traditional Chinese Daoist and Confucian philosophies. It then focuses on China’s initiatives in education—the creation of Confucius Institutes and China’s involvement in United Nations (UN) educational initiatives—as examples of the Chinese approach. Finally, the paper discusses China’s educational profile in relation to its broader role in global governance.
The outstanding performance of Shanghai students in the 4th Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA 2009) gained widespread attention at home and abroad. In this paper, the authors attribute this outstanding performance to three traditional factors and six modern factors. The traditional factors are high parental expectations, belief in the power of effort, and the mechanisms of personnel selection. The modern factors are the openness of Chinese education, curriculum and teaching reform, teacher training, improvement of comparatively poor schools, the financial resources allocation mechanism in compulsory education, and the reform of high school enrollment.