Welcome to the fourth edition (Volume 19) of the European Early Childhood Education Research Journal. This issue contains a rich variety of articles on some of the key issues currently facing early childhood education. These include school readiness and the balance between play and academic learning in early childhood settings, the nature of interaction between staff and children, the importance of supporting children's language development and the interests of parents, including those from minority groups. All of this is seen through the lens of research by practitioners and professional researchers, using a range of methods and theoretical frameworks.
‘School readiness’ is a controversial concept in early childhood circles. Practitioners and academics are concerned about the implication that early childhood provision is primarily a preparation for school, rather than addressing children's current needs and interests. They also see a danger in the idea that children must be made ‘ready’ for school, rather than schools responding to the needs of individual children. On the other hand, there is some merit in the argument that children who are better prepared for school – as a result of their home background and/or because of their experiences in early childhood settings – are likely to make a better transition, and this could make a contribution to redressing the pernicious effects of social inequality on children's life chances. These debates run through several of the articles in this issue.
Turkey does not have a universal system of early childhood education and only about a third of four- to six-year-olds attend any sort of pre-school setting. Sevda Bekman, Avhan Aksu-Koç and Eser Erguvanlı-Taylan's article reports on the effectiveness of a 10-week programme for disadvantaged six-year-olds. Teachers worked to develop children's physical, cognitive and linguistic skills before the children started school. The research compared their results with a control group of 100 children from the same neighbourhood who had not attended.
The children in the intervention group scored significantly higher on post-test measures of pre-literacy and pre-numeracy skills, and on measures of syntactic knowledge and story comprehension. The results also confirmed the importance of the mother's educational level as a positive influence on progress in language skills. The authors conclude that the programme represents a cost-effective means of improving children's school readiness.
Identifying ‘gifted and talented’ children under five is challenging and contentious. Yet without appropriate identification and provision, the needs of these children are in danger of going unrecognised - to their frustration and ultimately to the detriment of society. Valsa Koshy and Christine Pascal report on an action research project in 14 areas of England, which resulted in a greater understanding of the needs of exceptionally gifted young children, confirmed the importance of understanding each child's individual potential, provided enriching activities and environments and established positive relationships building on children's deeply held passions for learning. This article also pays tribute to the empowerment and personal engagement resulting from practitioners' involvement in action research: an observation which resonates strongly with my own experiences.
The article by three people named Konstantinos (Zacharos, Antonopoulos and Ravanis) reports on an investigation of how young children's mathematical understanding of capacity was affected by teaching them about measurement. The researchers worked with 20 five- and six-year-olds. As they point out, measurement presents a complex cognitive challenge, including understanding the concepts of measurement, the correspondence between physical reality and the symbolic system for recording quantities, mastering the measurement process, recording results and communicating with others. The study's findings show how children were able to grasp these concepts and apply them following their work with adults.
Cross-cultural studies can provide valuable insights into ‘taken for granted’ practices and underlying value systems. The article by Shu-Chen Wu reports on teachers' conceptions of play and learning in two countries with very different traditions of early childhood education. In Germany, free play has had a significant role in the early curriculum since Fröbel's time. But the Hong Kong kindergarten curriculum is much more academic and teacher-directed.
The study involved analysis of video observations of 48 children aged three to five in Hong Kong and Germany. The teachers (22 Chinese and 15 German), from four kindergartens, viewed video clips. The teachers explained the videotaped play episodes in their own cultures from an insider perspective, and commented on those from their counterparts as outsiders. A questionnaire was used to complement the group discussion.
German and Chinese teachers differed markedly in their conceptions of play. German teachers distinguished free play from other types of play, defining it as an important time for children to learn without adult instruction and guidance. Chinese teachers thought that an ‘academic’ activity incorporates play and believed that ‘children can learn better through teacher's guidance at play’. In considering adopting a more play-based curriculum, Chinese teachers cited concerns about parents' views of health and safety and thought that children's transition to primary school may be impeded. The authors conclude that teachers' beliefs about play and learning are reflected in their play arrangements and have implications for the implementation of pre-school curriculum guidelines.
Children's learning through play is also the subject of Mi Song Kim's article, which uses a Vygotskian perspective to consider play, drawing and writing. Kim investigated 11 four to six-year-old children at the Korean School in Montreal, Quebec. This article emerged from the lesson theme of the ‘circle’ which used art, cooking, storytelling, online journals, dancing and singing. As a teacher–researcher, Kim provides detailed examples from the children linked to Vygotsky's theory, to examine how the English-speaking Korean-Canadian children became literate. The article explains shows how the children's literacy activities were socioculturally embedded and how children created meanings by integrating reading, drawing, and languages while participating in joint literacy activities with their teacher and peers.
Liv Gjems also made a detailed study of interactions between teachers and children. The study comprised video-observations of everyday conversations between three teachers and children aged from three to five years in Norway. The study focused on small-group contexts, such as drawing activities, free time and meals, when the teacher's conversational support is directly connected with a child's language activity.
The teachers supported children by asking open questions and by communicating appreciation through smiles, gazes and nods. The analyses showed that the teachers encouraged the children's participation by asking questions and speculating about subjects with the children. However, the teachers did not expand on the subjects of shared interest with their own knowledge, nor did they invite children to pursue further knowledge from other sources, such as books or the internet. Another interesting finding, perhaps not unconnected, is that none of the children asked their teacher for an explanation and they rarely appealed teachers to find answers and develop their knowledge further.
Two articles give different perspectives on the challenges facing families from minority groups. The first, by Viktor Moin, Mila Schwartz, and Anna Breitkop, looked at bilingualism among Russian-speaking immigrant parents in Germany and in Israel.
In Germany, the Russian-speaking population numbers up to three million people, or about three per cent of the population, and has developed into a noticeable migrant group in the last decade. In Israel, the Russian-speaking group are the largest sub-ethnic community, with almost a million people, or about 18% of the population. The research group comprised 31 people in Germany and matched sample of 37 people in Israel. The parents had a high level of education and had emigrated about 12 years previously. The study used a questionnaire to find out about their preferences for bilingual education.
The results showed that both German and Israeli participants preferred bilingual education for their children. In explaining their kindergarten choices, both groups attributed the same importance to the child's well-being (as indicated by the professional level of the teaching staff, facilities and number of children in the group). But the German parents attributed greater importance to language medium than the Israeli parents, who attributed greater importance to their own convenience (such as the accessibility of the pre-school, and terms of payment). In general, the German parents preferred a more balanced language input in the kindergarten, whereas the Israeli parents preferred a predominantly Russian medium. Parental satisfaction and assessment of the child's well-being in the kindergarten was very high in both groups. Nevertheless, German parents were more satisfied with the chosen settings and the child's well-being.
The second, by Judy Whitmarsh, provides some interesting insights into parental involvement. The article reports on a study of asylum-seeking mothers in a large city in central England, focusing on their experiences of their children's early childhood settings. The mothers took part in a three-hour group interview using questions, ranking cards and discussion interpreted into their home languages. Four of the mothers were from Afghanistan, one from Iran, and one from Morocco.
The mothers all wanted their children to gain a good knowledge of English because they thought it would help them to integrate and succeed in the UK. But one was concerned about the loss of cultural identity as her son preferred to speak English at home and would not reply to her in Arabic.
The study revealed that these mothers felt welcomed by staff and worked hard to try to understand what is required of them as parent-partners. They participated in the classroom, attended parents' meetings, and tried to support their children's learning at home. However, they experienced a number of tensions. In particular, because the settings provided resources in other minority languages but not in their languages, the mothers began to perceive their culture as devalued and inclusion as a token gesture. They were concerned that their children were not learning ‘good English’ from the staff who were mainly from Asian backgrounds. In addition, because they viewed teachers as the experts in children's education, these mothers were less likely to engage with a Western model of partnership.
Pascale Garnier's article provides a historical consideration of the trends since the 1970s in the French école maternelle. There is a current debate about the closure or the retention of the école maternelle, its relationship with the primary school and its place in the system of early childhood education and care. The article presents evidence of a process of ‘scholarisation’, going hand in hand with a transformation in the curriculum of the école maternelle to place greater emphasis on the acquisition of cognitive and language skills in order to make a greater contribution to children's educational success. This has been accompanied by a shift away from the ‘care’ function of the nursery school in official documents. International comparisons of pre-primary education serve to underline this process of scholarisation and also the continued diversity of social functions performed by the école maternelle; including early education and preparation for compulsory education.