Editorial

In our call for papers for this special issue on transitions in the early years, we highlighted the issue of respectful, reciprocal relationships and the importance of listening to communities whose voices had not been previously heard. The papers published here provide an opportunity to consider these issues through new lenses, providing perspectives which include different sectors of early education; geographical variations across urban, rural and remote communities; children’s experiences across age groups, within settings and between home and centre; structural, curricular and professional priorities. It is possible to consider the implications of such emerging transitions issues – as identity, aspirations, agency, power, structure and relational approaches – for policy, pedagogy and partnership.

The inspiration for this special edition came from the two guest editors’ involvement in a four-year (2103–2016) five-country International Research Staff Exchange Scheme (IRSES) project focused on Pedagogies of Educational Transitions [POET]. Funded by Marie Curie in Europe and the Royal Society in New Zealand, POET provides a platform for the sharing of research expertise between researchers from the University of Waikato in New Zealand, Mälardalen University in Sweden, Scotland’s University of Strathclyde, the University of Iceland and Australia’s Charles Sturt University. The POET project highlighted international interest in aspects of transitions research, something that was reinforced by the response to the call for papers for this journal. The resulting collection draws on research from Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany and Iceland.

The OECD (2006) noted that transitions for children are ‘generally a stimulus to growth and development, but if too abrupt and handled without care, they carry – particularly for young children – the risk of regression and failure’ (2–3). The time of transition being one of both challenge and potential provides a fascinating site for research into a range of issues and this research can offer important messages for early years practice. The articles collected here identify possible approaches to facilitating transitions, including an emphasis on reciprocal relationships. At the same time, they raise interesting questions with regard to how we might theorise the transitions within early years settings and from early childhood education to school.

The first paper, by O’Farrelly and Hennessy, highlights the transitions that can occur within early childhood settings. The remaining six papers explore aspects of transition to school. These include Hutchison et al.’s and Rothe, Urban and Werning’s focus on parents’ voices; ECE and school connections, specifically professional collaboration and the perspectives of the professionals involved (Karila & Rantavuori); preschool and school communication (Hopps) and professional learning communities (Boyle & Petriwskyj). A final paper by Dockett and Perry explores integrated ECE and school programmes in rural Australia.

It is important to note that the age of school entry varies widely across the countries involved, so that this particular transition could occur as early as when the child is four-year old or not until age seven. Despite this difference in the age of the children involved, remarkably similar themes emerge regarding structural and philosophical characteristics of the school and early childhood settings, and the challenges these present for navigating between these different cultures. Given that four- and five-year olds seem to be faced with similar issues to seven-year olds, it is not surprising that there has been recent debate in a number of countries about the age of school entry. It is interesting to reflect on the possible impact of the later school entry (age seven) and high teacher qualifications in both ECE and school mentioned in Karila and Rantavuori’s article, given Finland’s success in PISA assessments.

Writing on transitions in early childhood focuses frequently on the ‘vertical’ transitions between settings and sectors. It has been claimed that even very young children are veterans of transition (Fabian and Dunlop 2005) and the first paper in this issue, ‘Watching transitions unfold’ (O’Farrelly and Hennessy), confirms that while transitions are what Brooker has called ‘a way of life’ (Brooker 2008), too little attention has been paid to their everyday nature in terms of age-related room changes with the youngest children. Dalli’s work (2003) on starting child care raised many important issues, such as relationships with peers, the teachers’ role in supporting children’s meaning making and our understanding of the social world of childcare for the youngest children. Subsequently, Cryer et al. (2005) reported directly on distress behaviour as the youngest children make transitions to new classes, which Dalli et al. (2011) also emphasise as a quality issue.

O’Farrelly and Hennessy draw attention to the changes occurring within settings for young children and they draw on long-standing understandings such as Ladd’s (1990) concept of transition with peers, and the importance of relationships not only between children but with practitioners and between involved adults. They focus too on the unheralded moves small children are sometimes expected to handle which call into question whether they are ‘transitions ready’, with a consequent focus on resilience and coping which, we suggest, can help to build ‘transitions capital’ (Dunlop 2014). It is clear we must consider what is happening to children if these ‘within setting’ transitions come about because a child can now walk, or has turned two or three, or because a vacancy has arisen in an ‘older’ room. Such transitions may be understood, then, as transitions demanded by the systems and structures we are used to, and may go unchallenged as a result. It can be argued that it is a professional responsibility to ensure that every child experiences transition positively (Dunlop 2014).

Hutchison et al., writing from Canada, give voice to the advocacy role that parents play as their children with developmental disabilities transition to school. Priorities for inclusion are particularly crucial for such children, as revealed by Dockett et al’s (2011) work on ‘complex families’. The authors highlight the de-skilling nature of change for even very expert parents in the transition to school as they hold insufficient knowledge about school expectations and cannot necessarily ask their child: parents of children who need additional support cannot experience themselves what their child is experiencing. This is important given that we claim to research children’s perspectives but in fact may be simply extrapolating from what we observe.

The authors conclude that a conceptual framework for parent advocacy for their child is needed. This needs to include, but move beyond, the four components of CFSA (Test et al. 2005) used in their study, which ‘were applicable when described as knowledge of child, knowledge of child’s rights, communication, and, to a lesser extent, leadership’. The framework also needs to include the releasing of parental responsibility and the importance of inclusion.

Our third paper, ‘Inclusive Transition Processes – Considering Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Parents’ Views and Actions for their Child’s Successful School Start’ (Rothe, Urban & Werning), describes the transition experiences of a group of German children and families. While making a strengths-based approach clear, the paper illustrates a worrying phenomenon, visible too in the Canadian paper, of how caring, motivated parents are all too quickly required to conform to the dominant system. Initially at transition their voice appears to matter, and professionally teachers know they can gain from parent knowledge and may make genuine attempts to hear. But gradually the parent becomes less able to advocate effectively: there is an analogy here with how even ordinarily healthy individuals become patients subsumed into hospital systems when changed into hospital gowns. The case studies of Maria and Lukas remind us of the power of the system, with its capacity to make families let go of their aspirations, and also that, despite at best strong relational approaches and at poorest face-to-face pleasantries, it may be hard for parents to maintain their agency in developing a shared view of their children with professionals.

Thus, it becomes obvious that collectively we need to continue the journey to understand how a new start in an early childhood setting, a room change or school entry become transitions not only for children, but for their parents and the professionals who work with them. We need to understand the power of both effective pedagogies and pedagogical documentation as inspiration and activism (Fleet et al. 2012) and the power of transitions as ‘tools for change’ (Dunlop et al. 2013).

The last four papers move the focus from the children and parents to the professionals involved, and also open debates about how we conceptualise the transition from ECE to school. While for the family and child, the liminal aspect of transition may imply a corridor rather than a threshold (Turner 1977), with the transition taking place over a prolonged period (James and Prout 1997), the conceptual space between the ‘cultures’ of early childhood education and school can also be thought of as a liminal space. Andrews and Roberts’ (2012) discussion of physical landscapes that give rise to liminal spaces, and borderline landscapes, seem applicable to conceptual terrain too. Earlier, Britt and Sumsion (2003) introduced the idea of a ‘borderland’ between ECE and school, an idea explored further by Peters (2014); ‘The borderland is a space not only of existence, but of coexistence’ (Britt and Sumsion 2003, 133).

Karila and Rantavuori’s article explores the discourses which emerge when professionals collaborate in the boundary spaces where ECE and school zones meet. Their case studies from urban and rural Finland show how the ECE and school professionals moved towards collaborative frames as their year of working together progressed. The authors suggest that working relationally needs to be learned; a finding that resonates with similar work in New Zealand. Over time, with persistence and a focus on reciprocity, Hartley et al. (2012) indicated that a robust ‘bridge’ between learning communities could be built, but that developing the necessary relationship skills was challenging. Similarly, research by Peters, Paki, and Davis (forthcoming) found that through joint mini action research projects, teachers gradually came to a better understanding of each other’s practices and could work together to support children’s learning across the transition, but that it took time and support for these relationships to develop and deepen.

Boyle and Petriwskyj’s article from Australia also examines the idea of bridges between ECE and school professionals. In a cross-sector initiative called the Building Bridges Professional Learning Community (BBPLC), the teachers highlighted the systemic differences between ECE and school, especially with regard to expectations and philosophical discontinuity. In the sixth article, Hopps, also from Australia, refers to this as ‘a great divide’ and adds to the description of sector differences. However, these differences can be navigated and narrowed; deeper respect for, and understanding of, the practices and conditions of each setting became enabling factors in the professionals’ collaboration, as shown by Boyle and Petriwskyj. Transformational change was possible through sustained critical conversations about professionals’ understandings of transitions practices and conditions. Rogoff’s (2003) reminder that ‘mutual understanding occurs between people in interaction; it cannot be attributed to one person or another’ (285) is relevant to keep in mind during such collaborations. Nevertheless, the research in these three articles reminds us that uneven distributions of power may be inherent in such interactions, with school practices often given precedence. Hopps notes that an unintended outcome of ECE and school communication can be the ‘schoolification’ of early childhood education. Perry, Dockett, and Petriwskyj’s (2014) recent book documents a range of ways in which transition has been theorised. Within this, Petriwskyj (2014) discusses the possibilities of using critical theories to draw attention to the unequal distribution of power and in power relations that impact on transitions. As these three articles show, this is an important consideration for teachers’ relationships with each other as well as their relationships with families.

The final article, by Dockett and Perry, reports on eight trial sites in rural areas in South Australia where, to provide preschool programmes in communities where there were small numbers of children, preschool was integrated with the first year of school (Integrating Preschool with the first Years of School: IPWS). This idea potentially offers a more formalised opportunity to explore a liminal space between sectors. However, while there were some opportunities to blend pedagogy and curriculum, in general, the results suggest a similar pattern to the previous articles, in that there was a danger that the school curriculum was prioritised and “pushed down” into preschool. As an opportunity to promote access to a quality preschool programme for small numbers of children living in rural and remote communities the approach seems worthy of further exploration to see if new ways of working together are possible.

Six of these seven articles focus on small groups – case studies of individual children or small numbers of teachers and settings. Case study approaches can be criticised for their lack of generalisability, but looking across these papers invites us to ask “why not?’ for they raise issues of transition in powerful detail that bring a human understanding not always found in large-scale quantitative work. The paper by Hopps offers a different approach, reporting on findings from questionnaires completed by 184 educators, giving access to teachers’ views across a broad range of diverse settings. Linking the ideas from all seven articles to the transitions position paper (Educational Transitions and Change Research Group 2011) to which the special issue editors contributed, which emphasises opportunities, expectations, aspirations and entitlements at times of educational transition, it is clear that what we are seeking for all children is successful inclusion in the new setting, but that where family and child needs are more complex or less well attended to, policies, the system, the curriculum and pedagogy must have the capacity to differentiate through strengths-based partnership approaches.

Conclusions

In this editorial, we have drawn attention to issues of agency; to the heterogeneity of families and therefore of early childhood groups and classes; to the importance of relational approaches to sustain the identity, culture and aspirations of all involved in transitions; and to ensure partnership between all parties as we both implement and question policy and pedagogy through stronger partnerships. We have also noted the systemic differences between ECE and school, and the way in which many of the issues have appeared remarkably resistant to change, despite a wealth of research and policy attention. Peters’ (2010) literature review showed that enhancing transitions may challenge traditional ways of doing things. The writers in this special edition raise further questions about the ways to conceptualise educational transitions, and offer transformational possibilities once the boundaries are blurred, and the liminal space between is embraced as a place where relationships can be built and new understandings and practices created.

Sally Peters
University of Waikato, New Zealand
[email protected]
Aline-Wendy Dunlop
University of Strathclyde, UK
[email protected]