ABSTRACT
There is, of course, a relationship between social constructivism (learning through interaction with knowledgeable others) and relational pedagogy, although they differ in the responsibility placed on all learners to understand themselves in that role and their own metacognition (see Merry and Rogers 2007) as well as that of those with whom they interact. To educate the child, we need to educate the adults: it is important that adults see and understand experiences such as play through the eyes of the child rather than mediating children’s experiences in terms of adult expectations (Moyles 1989). In the UK, the findings of the Effective Provision of Preschool Education (EPPE) by Sylva et al. (2004) show that warm adult interactions with children are vital to children’s intellectual development, as is ‘sustained shared thinking’ between adults and children, the importance of which is embedded in the need for each to understand the other’s perceptions, perspectives and understandings, and requires negotiation and empathy in order to achieve a co-construction of meanings. Underlying these processes are more characteristics of relational pedagogy which chapters in this section on adult-child relationships will embrace; for example, the concepts of language and culture, open discussion, trust and shared control, self-regulation, curious and open relationships, positive learner identities, intuitive behaviours and teachers’ professionalism.
