Andrea Nolan

In Australia, Family Day Care (FDC), the caring and educating of young children in the educator’s own home, plays a role in the diversity of offerings across the early childhood sector. However, FDC educators’ position as professionals is often unrecognised, leaving their work devalued and their agency limited. This study focuses on what FDC educators believe they bring to the early childhood sector, against mounting constraints, positioning themselves as a viable alternative within a suite of professional, quality programme offerings. Survey data from 200 respondents informs the study, analysed utilising thematic analysis and then considered through an Affordance Theory lens. This lens highlights how FDC educators’ perceptions have been shaped by culture, knowledge, ability, history and experience, in relation to the possibilities in the environment that act as either affordances or constraints. The themes identify that educators see themselves as supporting children’s learning through alignment with government frameworks; building safe and nurturing learning environments; establishing relationships with families and gaining a deep knowledge of each child through sustained engagement, yet do not feel recognised for their work as professionals. The paper argues that raising awareness and harnessing potential affordances could provide opportunities for action, leading to a revaluing of FDC.

A recent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report questions how education research can be more relevant and impactful and presents the first steps towards addressing this knowledge gap. In Australia, the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF v.2) acknowledges the importance of research evidence to inform practice, positioning early childhood teachers as consumers of research and producers of contextual knowledge related to practice. For this to be realised, early childhood teachers need opportunities to engage with research and build their research literacy. This chapter presents the Supporting Oral Language Development (SOLD) programme as one example of engaging early childhood teachers in comprehensive and contextualised research to inform their own practices. Data excerpts from this qualitative research study, located in Victoria, Australia, of how teachers collected evidence, analysed, and applied findings to inform their practices to support young children’s oral language learning are highlighted to provide practical examples of research-engaged teachers. The chapter showcases how the development of research literacy assists teachers to use critical skills to become involved in the production of research through the shaping of their own research projects, leading to evidence-informed practices that impact children’s oral language development.

The Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies (IJPS) shares scholarship and creates connections for cultural transformation to build a world in which all relationships, institutions, policies and organizations are based on principles of partnership. View our Global Readers. A Partnership Between: Center for Partnership Systems UMN School of Nursing UMN Libraries

Capturing the subtle and nuanced behaviours of very young children to honour their ‘voice’ in research is an ongoing methodological challenge. This paper details the evolution of a framework developed by the researchers in response to understanding the peer-to-peer relationshipss of infants and toddlers when engaging with digital technologies in an Australian Research Council-funded project. The framework and how it was applied is presented along with ethical and methodological considerations when researching alongside very young children. The benefits of the time-consuming process of developing a robust coding framework pays off when applied to observational data. We propose that building a fit-for-purpose framework, informed by research literature and modified iteratively through application, provided us with a way to assuredly represent the children’s social behaviours and emotional communication with each other as authentically as possible.

This chapter focuses on the peer-to-peer relationships of very young children that can be formed through the use of digital technologies. Digital technologies are now commonplace in the lives of young children; however, there is a dearth of research relating to children aged 0 to 3 years and their use of digital technology. This chapter draws attention to the often-expressed concern by parents and educators that using technology can be an isolating experience and detrimental to a child’s socialisation. Documented in this chapter will be the philosophical shift that occurred for the educators involved in this Investigation as they utilised technologies to support young children to foster relationships with their peers. It identifies the practices that were found to support young children to positively interact with their peers when using digital technologies as viewing, using, showing, and discussing. The chapter showcases the children and educators engaged in these practices and prompts thinking about how technologies can be used in the best interests of young children to support relationship building.

Background: Although widely accessible digital technology (DT) provided multiple opportunities for young children’s play, learning, and development, it also raised parents and professionals’ concerns regarding its impact on children’s physical activity. This study aimed to identify practices involving DT that were valued by parents in helping their young child to be physically active. Methods: Participants were parents of ambulatory young children (less than 5 y of age) engaged with a playgroup. The study involved representatives from 3 service organizations, who compiled a list of digital resources related to using DT to promote children’s physical activity that were suitable to be shared and trialed by parents and young children. During a pretrial workshop, researchers, participants, and organization representatives collaboratively developed the intervention, which involved the delivery of selected resources by weekly email, over a 12-week period. Participants provided weekly feedback about their experiences and participated in a postintervention semistructured qualitative interview. Results: Thirteen families, with children aged between 15 and 36 months, completed the trial. Participants reported several valued practices to promote their children’s physical activity, including those where the child was active while engaging with DT, where child engagement with DT acted as a prompt for later physical activity, where DT assisted parents in planning physical activity, where DT assisted parents in integrating movement with learning and play, and where DT was used to reinforce the child’s enthusiasm for physical activity. Conclusions: Parents reported several valued practices where children were physically active, rather than sedentary, while using digital technology.