Editorial

Serving as a member at the Board of Trustees of EECERA for three years was a unique experience, which has positively impacted my academic professional development by enhancing my understanding of the early childhood education field.

At a personal level, it was an extraordinary opportunity to cooperate with inspired colleagues at the board and EECERA’s employees. While stepping down – for personal reasons – from the board, I was offered the privilege to undertake the responsibility to compose this issue’s editorial.

The research approaches in early childhood are quite diverse and this issue’s content illustrates this diversity by utilising a wide range of methods and integrating data from multiple origins and sources. The articles presented here investigate important issues in the field of early childhood education and care (ECEC), following the quality characteristics of this journal and EECERA’s ethical code (Bertram et al. 2016). Every child in the world, regardless of their social, economic, or cultural status, has the right to have access to a high-quality education, especially in their early years. Thus, there is an increasing interest in the quality of ECEC provision all over the world, and the research implemented in this field. This journal has always supported this aspect by giving space to research conducted internationally, without limiting its content to specific places or countries. Following this philosophy, this issue hosts articles involving seven countries from three continents.

The ten articles included in the current issue could be grouped in three pillars: the first pillar includes three articles concerning ethical issues in young children’s research, children’s collaborative imaginative play, and children’s learning from experience. The second pillar also includes three articles and refers to comparative education presenting research among, Estonia & Finland; Norway & China; and Austria & Turkey. Finally, the third pillar includes four qualitative studies conducted in Australia, which refer to vertical and horizontal transition as a whole, workplace discourses, and action research.

Pillar 1. Ethical considerations, children’s play and learning from experience

As ethical consideration in research with young children is paramount for the EECERA organisation, it is important to first present the article of Richardson dealing with ethical issues in ECEC research. The paper focuses not only on the participants but also on all others that may be indirectly involved in a research project. It successfully demonstrates the issue of ethical responsibility together with the moral obligation researchers should have when researching in ECEC. Further, it discusses thoroughly the case of a research project concerning children’s literacy development, by highlighting the impact of the research process to non-participants. Richardson argues that, even if it is acknowledged that all possible ethical concerns cannot be eliminated in research, ethical considerations are equally important for participants who are not directly involved. She suggests undertaking the development of the ethical plan prior to commencing the research, and that all participants, even those who are not directly involved, should be recognised and taken into account throughout the research life cycle.

The next article by Hayward, Raine, and Hendry deals with play, a very important element of ECEC which I have myself been working on Chatzipanteli, Grammatikopoulos, and Gregoriadis (2014), Grammatikopoulos, Gregoriadis, and Zachopoulou (2012a, 2012b), Kouli et al. (2015) and Trevlas et al. (2003). Using an interpretivist approach, the main research question of this study focuses on how children use strategies in their play. The researchers used children’s video and narrative observations at home and in their preschool centre to answer questions including ‘how do children negotiate with each other in imaginary play?’; ‘what strategies do they use?’; ‘how do they work within the group to gain influence while maintaining the collaboration of others?’. Findings argue that the ability to influence the play relies on the children’s ‘negotiation’ capital. Moreover, the authors stress the importance of the supportive environment towards children’s effective learning, from and with, their peers. Conclusively, this study stresses that children are motivated to collaborate and engage with each other, and adults should learn how to provide children with a secure environment to develop such skills.

The third study was conducted by Munoz in Spain and it is a qualitative study in which students and teachers from elementary and special education, advisers in ECEC from teacher training centres, and professors and trainees from universities participated. One of the main goals of this study was for the participant students to understand their city – Cordoba, Spain – as an exceptional example of a multicultural city where three different cultures peacefully coexisted. The author argues that due to the very young age of the children – e.g. the ECEC students were 3–4 years old – this goal was not fully met. Another goal was the inclusive approach of this project. In this respect, the main finding is that children of general ECEC and their counterparts from special education coexisted without any problems during the project activities. Munoz argues that segregated behaviour towards different groupings could be attributed to social influence.

Pillar 2. Comparative education

The first article is a phenomenographic study conducted by Nikko and Ugaste examining teachers’ conception of learning and possible ways to learn in Estonia and Finland. The findings revealed that the participating teachers conceive learning as an occurrence of quantitative acquisition of knowledge and skills, which is then used in their everyday practice. Moreover, the comparison between the two country groups stressed basic cultural societal and cultural differences, with Estonian teachers being more focused on learning new information related to their work in order to face the rapid changes in the educational settings, while Finnish teachers emphasising the value of individual learning based on their own values. The main conclusion as the authors argued was the need of encouraging teachers’ active role towards the development of their own learning.

The second article regarding comparative education, conducted by Birkeland investigated the differences in the temporal order in two kindergartens in China and Norway in order to trace cultural formation ideals in different cultural settings. Focus group interviews with the teachers in the two countries revealed synchronic time and efficiency in China and flexible individualised time in Norway. As it concerns the main objective, the study’s findings revealed the independent and interdependent child as cultural formation ideals, which is a very important and interesting finding. The construct of dependency in early childhood education has been the topic of many recent quantitative studies revealing that socio-cultural factors (collectivistic vs individualistic societies) impact the perception of the construct (Gregoriadis & Grammatikopoulos, 2014; Gregoriadis et al., in press; Grammatikopoulos et al., 2018; Mesman et al., 2016; Tsigilis et al., 2018; 2018). Birkeland by utilising a deeper qualitative approach shed more light into the way socio-cultural diversities impact this concept. This is another example of the valuable coexistence of both paradigms in social research reality.

The next article is a study of Ramazan, Rohrmann, Sak, Tuba and Schauer which deals with a very interesting topic, namely parental perceptions on male staff in ECEC. They compare parents’ views on the existence of male teachers and carers in Turkey and Austria, two countries with different socio-cultural settings and male staff participation in ECEC. The findings indeed detected important diversities regarding how parents perceive the existence of male staff in ECEC. The differences have been attributed to cultural traditions related to the perception of the role of men and women in family and society between the two countries. Male workers in ECEC are less likely to be accepted in Turkey compared to Austria, where parents are more supportive for a better gender balance in ECEC work environment.

Pillar 3. Qualitative approaches in Australia regarding vertical and horizontal transition as a whole, workplace discourses, and action research

The first article is a case study conducted by Ma and refers to the concept of transition, a well-documented and investigated topic. Yet, the novelty of Ma’s study is that it approaches vertical and horizontal transition as a whole. An immigrant Chinese child makes not only the vertical transition from preschool to primary school but also at the same time the horizontal transition from China to Australia. The study explores how the child learns and develops throughout this course. Ma approaches the research questions of her study based on the cultural-historical theory (Gutierrez & Rogoff, 2003; Vygotsky, 1998). The child, his parents and his teachers in kindergarten and primary school were the participants of the current study, providing 46 h of data from observations and interviews. The conclusions of the study can be grouped under three main arguments: (a) transition cannot be regarded as a linear procedure and that it is not the environmental changes per se but the changes of the relation between the child and their environment that is more important, (b) every child is characterised by their unique transition trajectory, thus parents together with educators have to map this trajectory in order to identify the child’s individual challenges and needs, and (c) culture is an embedded factor of the social situation of development rather than a separate factor that influences child learning and development. The latter view is regarded as a stereotypical one and Ma argues that it does not add much to our knowledge about how an immigrant child learns and develops within a bi-cultural environment.

Next, follows a study conducted by Armstrong, Rivalland and Monk, which deals with the role of workplace discourses. This article investigates the way workplace discourses support or hinder early educators to engage in education reforms. Based on discourse analysis, the authors analysed the data derived from directors, centre coordinators, and educators working at early childhood centres in Melbourne, Victoria. The findings of this study shed light to the connection between workplace discourses and educators’ engagement in education reforms in the Victorian long day care sector. The participants acknowledged the workplace as either supportive or stressor factor for their engagement in education reform. For example, leaders having conservative subject positions were reluctant to be supportive for the engagement in education reform procedures. On the other hand, ‘revolutionary’ subject position leaders exhibit a more positive response to change, thus supported the engagement in reforms.

The third article falls under the broad field of action research and conducted by Newman and Leggett. Building upon the benefits of researching with rather than about educators, the authors focused on initiatives that engaged practitioners in planning and reflecting on their own professional learning. The researchers argued that educators participated in the study acknowledged the importance of learning about research procedures, and that educator research can become a powerful tool for practitioners towards the improvement of their own practice.

Last but definitely not least is the second study under the field of action research which deals with the notion educators as researchers. Leggett and Newman conducted a qualitative study focused on building capacity in practitioners’ ability to research. Working closely with academic researchers, educators from four ECEC centres engaged in research activities at their own practice. The main objective of the study was the empowerment of educators’ research skills and capacities with the supportive role of university researchers. Focus group interviews were conducted and analysed to serve the purpose of the current study. The main findings revealed a significant impact on educators’ capacities as researchers. Focus group interviews analysis, using NVivo software, revealed that the participant practitioners in the current study accepted and valued their new identity as educator researcher, acknowledging the vital contribution and practical importance of action research in education.