Ingrid Pramling Samuelsson

Niklas Pramling

Hanna Palmér

Maria Magnusson

Cecilia Wallerstedt

Pernilla Lagerlöf

Camilla Björklund

Anne Kultti

Susanne Thulin

Agneta Jonsson

This open access book develops a theoretical concept of teaching that is relevant to early childhood education, and based on children’s learning and development through play. It discusses theoretical premises and research on playing and learning, and proposes the development of play-responsive didaktik. It examines the processes and products of learning and development, teaching and its phylogenetic and ontogenetic development, as well as the ‘what’ of learning and didaktik. Next, it explores the actions, objects and meaning of play and provides insight into the diversity of beliefs about the practices of play. The book presents ideas on how combined research and development projects can be carried out, providing incentive and a model for practice development and research. The second part of the book consists of empirical studies on teacher’s playing skills and examples of play with very young as well as older children.

Play-Responsive Teaching in Early Childhood Education

Dion Sommer

Karsten Hundeide

Recent decades have seen a growing emphasis, in a number of professional contexts, on acknowledging and acting on the views of children. This trend was given added weight by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified in 1990. Today, seeking the perspective of the child has become an essential process in all sorts of tasks, from framing new legislation to regulating professions. This book answers the fundamental question of what it is that constitutes a ‘child perspective’, and how this might differ from the perspectives of children themselves. The answers to such questions have important implications for building progressive and developmental adult-child relationships. However, theoretical and empirical treatments of child perspectives and children’s perspectives are very diverse and idiosyncratic, and the standard reference work has yet to be written. Thus, this work is an attempt to fill the gap in the literature by searching for and defining key formulations of potential child perspectives within parts of the so-called ‘new child paradigm’. This has been derived from childhood sociology, contextual-relational developmental psychology, interpretative humanistic psychology and developmental pedagogy. The highly experienced authors develop a comprehensive professional child perspective paradigm that integrates recent theory and empirical child research. With its clear presentation of underlying theories and suggested applications, this book illustrates a child-oriented understanding of specific relevance to both child-care and preschool educational practice.

Child Perspectives and Children’s Perspectives in Theory and Practice

John Siraj-Blatchford

Ingrid Pramling

It is in early childhood that the foundations of many of our fundamental attitudes and values are first put into place. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is all about the future and it is young children who have the greatest stake as citizens in the future. This book provides an introduction to education for sustainability in the field of early childhood. Written by leading experts and including the very latest international thinking on the subject, it clearly describes how the idea of ESD emerged, and shows how today it includes an integration of social, environmental and economic aspects of life and society. The authors look at what is already being done in early years settings and provides practical support for practitioners to develop this further drawing on best practice from around the world. Presenting a wide range of examples of projects carried out with young children, this timely book aims to offer practitioners inspiration for further development of Education for Sustainable Development in the early years. It will also be a rich source of information for those concerned with policy development.

Education for Sustainable Development in the Early Years

Ingrid Pramling Samuelsson

Books

Your next favorite book is out there