ABSTRACT
Recent and increasing efforts to standardize young children’s academic performance have shifted the emphases of education toward normative practices and away from qualitative, substantive intentions. Connection to human experience, compassion for societal ailments, and the joys of learning are straining under the pressure of quantitative research, competition, and test scores, exemplified by federal funding competitions and policymaking.
Disrupting Early Childhood Education Research critically interrogates the traditional foundations of early childhood research practices to disrupt the status quo through imaginative, cutting-edge research in diverse U.S. and international contexts. Its chapters are driven by empirical data derived from unique research projects and a variety of contemporary methodologies that include phenomenological studies, auto-ethnographic writings, action-oriented studies, arts-based methodologies, and other innovative approaches. By giving voice to marginalized social science researchers who are active in learning, school, and early education sectors, this volume explores the meanings of actionable and everyday approaches based on the experiences of young children, their families, and educators.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part Section 1|63 pages
New Theoretical and Methodological Imaginings
chapter 2|17 pages
Research as an Ethic of Welcome and Relationship
chapter 4|20 pages
Critiquing Traditional Colonial Practices in Teacher Education
part Section 2|43 pages
Democratizing the Research Process
part Section 3|65 pages
Critical Issues in Early Childhood Research from New Perspectives