Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies

Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies
Author: Karen Malone
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2020-11-05
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9811581754

This book is a genealogical foregrounding and performance of conceptions of children and their childhoods over time. We acknowledge that children’s lives are embedded in worlds both inside and outside of structured schooling or institutional settings, and that this relationality informs how we think about what it means to be a child living and experiencing childhood. The book maps the field by taking up a cross-disciplinary, genealogical niche to offer both an introduction to theoretical underpinnings of emerging theories and concepts, and to provide hands-on examples of how they might play out. This book positions children and their everyday lived childhoods in the Anthropocene and focuses on the interface of children’s being in the everyday spaces and places of contemporary communities and societies. In particular this book examines how the shift towards posthuman and new materialist perspectives continues to challenge dominant developmental, social constructivist and structuralist theoretical approaches in diverse ways, to help us to understand contemporary constructions of childhoods. It recognises that while such dominant approaches have long been shown to limit the complexity of what it means to be a child living in the contemporary world, the traditions of many Eurocentric theories have not addressed the diversity of children’s lives in the majority of countries or in the Global South.

The Posthuman Child

The Posthuman Child
Author: Karin Murris
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2016-03-17
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1317511689

The Posthuman Child combats institutionalised ageist practices in primary, early childhood and teacher education. Grounded in a critical posthumanist perspective on the purpose of education, it provides a genealogy of psychology, sociology and philosophy of childhood in which dominant figurations of child and childhood are exposed as positioning child as epistemically and ontologically inferior. Entangled throughout this book are practical and theorised examples of philosophical work with student teachers, teachers, other practitioners and children (aged 3-11) from South Africa and Britain. These engage arguments about how children are routinely marginalised, discriminated against and denied, especially when the child is also female, black, lives in poverty and whose home language is not English. The book makes a distinctive contribution to the decolonisation of childhood discourses. Underpinned by good quality picturebooks and other striking images, the book's radical proposal for transformation is to reconfigure the child as rich, resourceful and resilient through relationships with (non) human others, and explores the implications for literary and literacy education, teacher education, curriculum construction, implementation and assessment. It is essential reading for all who research, work and live with children.

(Re)theorising More-than-parental Involvement in Early Childhood Education and Care

(Re)theorising More-than-parental Involvement in Early Childhood Education and Care
Author: Alicja R. Sadownik
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2023-08-24
Genre: Education
ISBN: 3031387627

This open access book provides a critical, thought-provoking, and stimulating overview of theories applied worldwide to conceptualise collaborations between early childhood education and children's families. The book starts with a critical reflection on the colonial undertones of parental involvement (PI) and acknowledges a strong political will to improve this aspect of early childhood education and care. The chapters in the book describe and discuss various theories, including the cultural historical wholeness approach, Bronfenbrenner's ecology of human development, the theory of social capital, the theory of collaboration, family-school partnership models proposed by Epstein and Hornby, Bourdieu's social theory, the theory of practice architectures, the discourse/narrative theory, and posthumanism. By proposing the concept of more-than-parents, the authors aim to embrace both the diversity of intergenerational family configurations and the agency of materiality, artifacts, and the involvement of more-than-human actors.

Postdevelopmental Approaches to Pedagogical Observation in Childhood

Postdevelopmental Approaches to Pedagogical Observation in Childhood
Author: Mona Sakr
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2023-08-24
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1350369667

This book argues that developmental approaches to observation in childhood pedagogy are limiting, that there is an urgent need to unsettle and reimagine observation, proposing new postdevelopmental theories and modes of inquiry for educators. Written by leading scholars based in Australia, Canada, Finland, New Zealand, the UK and the USA, the chapters consider observation as it is enacted in the home, nursery or classroom. Drawing on a range of theories including feminist new materialism, social semiotics, and sociocultural and multimodal approaches to early childhood the chapters cover a range of areas from early childhood art and observational literacy tools to intergenerational research, and using photography and video in observations.

Critical Childhood Studies

Critical Childhood Studies
Author: Kay Tisdall
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2023-08-10
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1350163236

The book provides an advanced, accessible text for childhood studies, which is suitable and challenging for those coming from practice, different parts of the world and from a range of disciplines. Key ideas within childhood studies are introduced, from agency to intersectionality to children's rights. Addressing children and young people under the age of 18, the book combines concepts from seminal texts with challenging, critical views and alternatives, to stimulate readers to develop their own analysis and apply the results to their own interests. It reveals how childhood studies draws on a rich and diverse range of perspectives from child development, educational studies, history, human rights, media studies, philosophy, public health, race and ethnicity studies, to social anthropology. The book is organised around five sections: Foundations of Childhood Studies Childhood Studies Meets Other Disciplines Childhood Studies Meets Children's Rights Studies Intersectional Perspectives on Childhood Childhood Studies in Practice Each section includes commentaries from international experts based in Australia (Amanda Third), Brazil (Irene Rizzini), the UK (Erica Burman), the USA (Sarada Balagopalan) and Zimbabwe (Tendai Charity Nhenga). The book has a range of pedagogical features including guiding questions and challenge tasks, quotes from students and other experts, and a glossary of terms. The book has a companion website with videos from authors, students and those working in practice and policy, interactive tasks and other resources.

Posthumanism and Education: Transgression or Interdependence

Posthumanism and Education: Transgression or Interdependence
Author: Ivan Nišavić
Publisher: Transnational Press London
Total Pages: 461
Release: 2024-08-20
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1801352585

This collection delves into the ongoing debates spanning decades on the intricate interplay between posthumanism, the posthuman age, and education. Featuring authors from diverse backgrounds and theoretical perspectives, the chapters explore a spectrum of themes – from technophilia to technophobia, transhumanism to humanism, and Bildung tradition to new materialism – illuminating key dimensions of education in what is heralded as a new and distinct era. At the heart of these discussions is an exploration of whether this era truly marks a radical departure and how it influences educational practices. The chapters offer arguments both supporting and challenging these ideas, advocating for critical reflection and a fresh perspective on human experience and contemporary education. The collection suggests a creative and considerate approach to children's learning and learning with children, which would not only respond to the challenges of imposed circumstances but also suggest active work on the desirable construction of new ones.

New Images of Thought in the Study of Childhood Drawing

New Images of Thought in the Study of Childhood Drawing
Author: Laura Trafí-Prats
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 187
Release: 2022-10-21
Genre: Education
ISBN: 3031071433

This book provides a revitalised account of the study of children’s drawing by outlining a departure from existing approaches privileging developmentalist accounts and presenting drawing as a specialised human endeavour separated from other material entanglements constituting children’s everyday experiences. The book takes on current developments in the fields of early childhood arts and early childhood literacies to advocate for process-oriented, new materialist and decolonial approaches that re-conceptualise the study of children’s drawing. It proposes a future-oriented approach, centred on thinking experimentally with a focus on nonrepresentational elements, such as movement, sensation, intensity, rhythm, story and place, which singularly assemble in drawing events. Thus, the book discusses drawing as a process of sense-making that is not enclosed in the individualised body of the child and that unfolds corporeally in time and space. It revises the relation of drawing with symbolisation by suggesting that the use of language and signs in drawing form in entanglement with matter and sensation in processes of creative speculation connected with the movement of thought. Presenting a series of contributions by internationally recognised scholars and artists, the book aims to create synergies between theory and practice that speak of everyday realities interconnecting children, learning and sense-making.

Methodological Approaches to STEM Education Research Volume 3

Methodological Approaches to STEM Education Research Volume 3
Author: Peta J. White
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 410
Release: 2022-09-30
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 1527588459

We live in challenging and uncertain times, with profound implications for the purpose and nature of education. The crises of the Anthropocene, with the related climate-related challenges, biodiversity loss, a global pandemic, and changes to the world of work driven by science and technology innovation and the ascendency of data and knowledge, pressure us to rethink how we prepare people for such futures. This, in turn, has changed the landscape of educational research, perhaps particularly in the areas of mathematics, health and environmental education research that are so central to responding to these global pressures and potential solutions. We need to think critically about education research design and practice as part of a considered and robust discussion of education research theory and practice that will inform and help shape education systems into the future. This volume responds to these challenges, casting fresh light on contemporary methodologies fit for reconsidering education into the future. Chapters explore post-qualitative inquiry, with overviews and practices, arts-based and interdisciplinary methodologies, self-study and auto-ethnography for the Anthropocene, co-design with teachers, researching for system change, the ethics of ‘netnography’, and principles and practices of literature review.