ABSTRACT

Curriculum in Early Childhood Education: Re-examined, Reclaimed, Renewed critically and thoroughly examines key questions, aims, and approaches in early childhood curricula.

Designed to provide a theoretical and philosophical foundation for examining teaching and learning in the early years, this fully updated and timely second edition provokes discussion and analysis among all readers. What influences operate (both historically and currently) to impact what happens in young children's classrooms? Whose perspectives are dominant and whose are ignored? What values are explicit and implicit? Each chapter gives readers a starting point for re-examining key topics, encourages a rich exchange of ideas in the university classroom, and provides a valuable resource for professionals. This second edition has been fully revised to reflect the current complexities and tensions inherent in curricular decision-making and features attention to policy, standardization, play, and diversity, providing readers with historical context, current theories, and new perspectives for the field.

Curriculum in Early Childhood Education is essential reading for those seeking to examine curriculum in early childhood and develop a stronger understanding of how theories and philosophies intersect with the issues that accompany the creation and implementation of learning experiences.

chapter 1|16 pages

Curriculum and Research

What Are the Gaps We Ought to Mind, Redux

chapter 3|17 pages

Standards, Correlations, and Questions

Examining the Impact of the Accountability Regime on Early Childhood Curriculum

chapter 4|13 pages

From Theory to Curriculum

Developmental Theory and Its Relationship to Curriculum and Instruction in Early Childhood Education

chapter 5|16 pages

The Curriculum Theory Lens on Early Childhood

Moving Thought into Action

chapter 7|18 pages

Infant-Toddler Curriculum

Reconsider, Refresh, and Reinforce

chapter 8|15 pages

Unpacking the Tensions in Open-ended Preschool Curriculum

Teacher Agency, Standardization, and English Learners in Creative Curriculum and High/Scope

chapter 10|17 pages

A Story about Story

The Promise of Multilingual Children and Teachers and a Framework for Integrated Curriculum

chapter 11|10 pages

Changing the Discourse

The Capability Approach and Early Childhood Education

chapter 12|22 pages

Countering the Essentialized Discourse of Curriculum

Opening Spaces for Complicated Conversations