ABSTRACT
Contemporary research and policy frameworks agree that reflecting in and on practice is essential to improving the quality of provision, and supporting professional development. However, the concept of reflective practice may be narrowly interpreted as a means of ensuring that teachers and practitioners are ‘delivering’ the curriculum and achieving defined learning outcomes. Wood and Attfield (2005) argue that effective educators need to be good researchers, and to develop inquiry-based approaches to their practice. Similarly, Rinaldi (2006) proposes that early childhood education should be based on a ‘pedagogy of listening’, which encompasses ethical and political commitments to children, families and communities. By integrating such approaches, Dahlberg and Moss (2005) argue that education settings can become sites for ethical practice, in which practitioners can confront injustice and inequity, and forms of domination and oppression. They can also challenge assumptions, which may be derived from their own professional and life experiences, and policy texts.
