Subtle emotional process in early childhood pedagogy: evaluating the contribution of the Tavistock Observation Method

Abstract

Nursery experience is now common for young children and their families. Questions of quality have focussed mainly on safety and early learning. The roles of subtle emotional processes in daily pedagogic interactions have received surprisingly little attention. This paper discusses the Tavistock Observation Method (TOM), a naturalistic method of observation underpinned by psychoanalytic conceptions and in which emotional experience is an integral part of observation narratives. The paper reports on a detailed evaluation of the use of an adapted version of TOM in nurseries in England and the contribution it can make to empirical exploration of emotional processes. A concurrent sister study will report on the use of A-TOM in Australia.

Keywords:

• Emotion
• nursery
• pedagogy
• Tavistock Observation Method
• subjectivity

Acknowledgements

I wish to acknowledge funding for this study from the Froebel Trust and to thank my research colleagues, Jools Page and Sue Greenfied in the UK study for their collaboration, the three heads of English nurseries who enabled the case studies and our research colleagues in Australia, Linda Harrison, Robyn Dolby, Belinda Freizer and Italia Parlatta, working on the sister study. I would also like to thank Katy Dearnley, Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist, who facilitated the training on the Tavistock Observation Method. Finally, I thank Professor Debbie Epstein and anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments on the paper.