BOOK CHAPTERS by Marek Tesar
Intra-Public intellectualism: Critical Qualitative Inquiry in the Academy, 2020
Tesar, M. (2020). Is that a ladybird on the leaf? Public Intellectualism and Resistance with Very... more Tesar, M. (2020). Is that a ladybird on the leaf? Public Intellectualism and Resistance with Very Young Children. In Wells, T., Carlson, D., & Koro, M. (Eds), Intra-Public intellectualism: Critical Qualitative Inquiry in the Academy (pp. 89-100), Myers Education Press
Peters, M. A., & Tesar, M. (2018). Philosophy and performance of neoliberal ideologies: History, politics and human subjects. In M. A. Peters & M. Tesar (Eds.), Contesting governing ideologies: An EPAT reader on neoliberalism (2-18). New York, NY: Routledge.
The assertion above in the opening quote means to distinguish positionings towards this governing... more The assertion above in the opening quote means to distinguish positionings towards this governing ideology through three approaches to neo-liberalism. Th~ politi~al and economic theory behind neoliberal ideology is one of the mam ~rch1tectural and philosophical features of the educational policy paradigm m the Western world since the late 1970s and early 1980s. The notion of 'policy enactments' means to consider some of the 'lived effects' of neoliberal policy on our contemporary educational discourses and on lived experiences and narratives that occur in education settings and that testify to these changes .
Troubling the changing paradigms: An Educational Philosophy and Theory Early Childhood Reader, 2018
Peters, M. A., & Tesar, M. (2018). The philosophy of early childhood: Examining the cradle of the... more Peters, M. A., & Tesar, M. (2018). The philosophy of early childhood: Examining the cradle of the evil, rational and free child. In M. A. Peters & M. Tesar, (Eds.), Troubling the changing paradigms: An Educational Philosophy and Theory Early Childhood Reader (2-15). New York, NY: Routledge.
A Companion to Research in Teacher Education, 2017
Tesar, M., Gibbons, A., & Farquhar, S. (2017). Flows of knowledge in teaching teams: Teacher educ... more Tesar, M., Gibbons, A., & Farquhar, S. (2017). Flows of knowledge in teaching teams: Teacher education as the study and practice of collective/collaborative early childhood teaching. In M. A. Peters, Cowie, B., & I. Menter (Eds.), A companion to research in teacher education (785-797). New York, NY: Springer.
The aim of this chapter is to theorise and propose ways to consolidate and build knowledge about the nature and impact of teacher education on teaching team relationships in Early Childhood Education (ECE). ECE teacher education provides a critical opportunity to study and practice being in a teaching team. In this chapter, we explore the nature of early childhood (EC) teaching teams with a focus on 'knowledge'. The 'knowledge relationships' within teaching teams are complex elements of the EC curriculum that have received little sustained, critical attention in educational research. Two aspects of team relationships are of particular value here because of their capacity to enrich the experiences of teachers and children in ECE: (1) the ways in which new and/or beginning teachers are welcomed into the knowledge community of an EC centre; and (2) the ways in which the sharing and construction of knowledge in a teaching team impacts on teaching and learning in the EC curriculum. These two elements are of significance to teacher education in terms of both how the student experiences the study of teaching as an experience in preparation for being a teaching team member, and how that experience translates into being in a teaching team. The chapter contributes to two essential and ongoing wider research needs identified in Aotearoa New Zealand: the nature and promotion of twenty-first century teaching and learning environments-environments characterised in relation to open, dynamic, and collective knowledge environments; and the experiences of beginning and new teachers as they enter their teaching teams ('new teachers'
Tracing notions of sustainability in urban childhoods, 2017
Tesar, M. (2017). Tracing notions of sustainability in urban childhoods. In K. Malone, T. Gray, ... more Tesar, M. (2017). Tracing notions of sustainability in urban childhoods. In K. Malone, T. Gray, & S. Truong (Eds.), Reimagining sustainability in precarious times (115-127). New York, NY: Springer.
Qualitative Inquiry in Neoliberal Times, 2017
Koro-Ljungberg, M., Cirell, A. M., Byoung-gyu, G., & Tesar, M. (2017). The importance of small fo... more Koro-Ljungberg, M., Cirell, A. M., Byoung-gyu, G., & Tesar, M. (2017). The importance of small form: “Minor” data and “BIG” neoliberalism. In N. Denzin, & M. D. Giardina, Qualitative Inquiry in Neoliberal Times (pp. 59–73). New York, NY: Routledge.
Practice theory: Diffractive readings in professional practice and education, 2017
Peters, M. A., & Tesar, M. (2017). Bad research, bad education: The contested evidence for eviden... more Peters, M. A., & Tesar, M. (2017). Bad research, bad education: The contested evidence for evidence-based research, policy and practice in education. In J. Lynch, J. Rowlands, T. Gale, & A. Skourdoumbis (Eds.), Practice theory: Diffractive readings in professional practice and education (231-246). London, UK: Routledge.
Farquhar, S., & Tesar, M. (2016). Theorizing what it means to be pedagogical in (the) early years... more Farquhar, S., & Tesar, M. (2016). Theorizing what it means to be pedagogical in (the) early years (of) teaching. In J. M. Iorio & W. Parnell (Eds.), Disrupting through imagination: Rethinking early childhood teacher research (pp. 26–36). London, UK: Routledge.
A traditional way of writing up research is to outline the concerns and the literature , describe the methodology, and present and analyze the findings. In this chapter, however, we focus on the 'how' of a research project. We do this in the context of an emerging research practice with newly qualified early childhood teachers in Auckland inAotearoa. (Aotearoa is the Maori name for New Zealand. Frequently, Aotearoa and New Zealand are used in conjunction. We use just the Maori name-Aotearoa-in this chapter.) Our research aim is to explore what it means to be pedagogical in diverse social and political early childhood contexts. In the project we will be asking newly qualified teachers to share their experiences with us and to engage in reflective and challenging thinking, to question and evaluate their own, and other more established, practices. In this evolving project, they will share their unique experiences of their workplace relationships and question their own pedagogies. The focus of the chapter is to report on how we are working in a philosophical way through narrative to develop an organic and unpredictable mode of inquiry, in which the methodology and analysis emerge from the action/ people/ events involved in the project. Promoting an organic mode of narrative and discovering method-ological and analytical insights within teachers' narratives is, in short, not always an easy task, when educational discourses are heavily laden with the expectations of traditional research outcomes. We outline some conceptual thinking about how we put together existing scholarship in a playful way, to set about considering the literature and what might be useful thinking as we embark on this project of theorizing pedagogy. We then report on our difficulties in esche,:ving the restrictive nature of frameworks and models in such research and the problem of dominant qualitative discourses seeping in around the edges of our theorizing in unexpected ways. Theorizing What It Means 27 Our theorizing of the project in this way examines how we might work alongside teachers and how we might go about interpreting their experiences and narratives in respectful and ethical ways. Narrative inquiry focuses on the lived experiences of participants, and a philosophical approach invites consideration of ways to think, read, and analyze. Both narrative inquiry and philosophy are open to the possibility that both process and analysis emanate from the research concern itself. With this in mind, teachers will be invited to discuss and write about their lived experiences. Their narratives may intersect-with the ideas that we unfold in our theorizing and conceptualization and may include influences on their pedagogy that we discuss in this chapter-influences such as curriculum initiatives , leadership and management practices, research, and policy. Furthermore, because Auckland is a large urban city, their narratives may also reflect elements of globalization; internationalism; migration; and changing local, social, and cultural practices. However, what emerges will undoubtedly be more complex than this, and the theorizing we suggest here is simply a first engagement with understanding what it might be like to be a newly qualified early childhood teacher. We suspect that pedagogy for each of the teachers in this research will be unique and possibly problematic. It is imagined that this research vvill work at t\;vo levels: to extend participants' own thinking and engagement in collegial debate, and to contribute to critical scholarship about teachers' pedagogy in the early years of teaching. We anticipate working with 12 teachers who have already accepted our invitation to join the group discussions, and we hope that most will continue through the extended narrative work later in the project.
Death, politics and production of childhoods through children’s literature, 2016
Tesar, M. (2016). Death, politics and production of childhoods through children’s literature. In ... more Tesar, M. (2016). Death, politics and production of childhoods through children’s literature. In L. Clement & L. Jamali (Eds.), Global perspectives on death in children’s literature (pp. 193–205). New York, NY: Routledge.
Children’s power relations, resistance and subjects positions, 2016
Tesar, M. (2016). Children’s power relations, resistance and subjects positions. In M. A. Peters ... more Tesar, M. (2016). Children’s power relations, resistance and subjects positions. In M. A. Peters (Ed.), Encyclopedia of educational philosophy and theory. New York, NY: Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_267-1
Childhood studies, an overview of., 2016
Tesar, M. (2016). Childhood studies, an overview of. In M. A. Peters (Ed), Encyclopedia of educa... more Tesar, M. (2016). Childhood studies, an overview of. In M. A. Peters (Ed), Encyclopedia of educational philosophy and theory. New York, NY: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_261-1
Peters, M. A., & Tesar, M. (2016). The critical ontology of ourselves: Lessons from the philosoph... more Peters, M. A., & Tesar, M. (2016). The critical ontology of ourselves: Lessons from the philosophy of the subject. In M. A. Peters & M. Tesar (Eds.), Beyond the philosophy of the subject: An EPAT post-structuralist reader (pp. vii–xvii). New York, NY: Routledge.
The critical ontology of omselves has to be considered not, certainly, as a theory, a doctiine, nor even as a permanent body of knowledge that is accmnnlating; it has to be conceived as an attitude, an ethos, a philosophical life in which the critique of what we are is at one and the same time the hist01ical analysis of the limits that are imposed on us and an experiment with the possibility of going beyond them. (Foucault, 1984, p. 50) This first volume of Educational Philosophy and Theory: Editor's Choice is focused on a selection of texts from the latter twenty years ofEPAT, selected for their pivotal status as turning points or important awakenings in post-structural theory. The first paper ·Beyond the Philosophy of the Subject: Liberalism, Education and the Critique of Individualism, from which the title of this volume is borrowed, argues t11at subject-centred reasoning is now exhausted, and calls for rethinking, reconceptualising the epistemological subject. The linguistic turn is applied by the most prolific and seminal contemporary thinkers and philosophers of education, to work with and beyond the philosophy of the subject, using prominent philosophers of the twentieth century such as Foucault, Derrida, Nietzsche and Ranciere. The carefully balanced selection in this reader is informed by Fou-cault's thinking of the political subjugation of docile bodies to individuals as self-determining beings continually in the process of constituting themselves as ethical subjects. In this selection, there is also an obvious culmination of amalgamations of different schools of educational philosophy that can fit under the banner of post-structuralist approaches to education. In the last twenty years, as this selection depicts, the applications of the postmodern and post-structuralist perspectives have become less monofocused, less narrowly concerned with technical questions and also perhaps less interested in epistemology and more interested in ethics. This post-structural reader covers the questions of genealogy, ontology, the body and the institution, and it gives examples of theoretical applications of post-structural tl1eory that testify to the generative and endlessly applicable potential of this work to different fields and avenues of thought. Furthermore, contemporary concerns in the philosophy of education have tended to emphasize the challenges to equality and social justice that education systems in modern
Peters, M. A., & Tesar, M. (2016). The birth of educational research, teacher education and the t... more Peters, M. A., & Tesar, M. (2016). The birth of educational research, teacher education and the turn to practice: From practitioner knowledge and communities of practice to evidence-based policy and practice. In In search of subjectivities: An EPAT teacher education reader (pp. 1–14). New York, NY: Routledge.
Gibbons, A., Farquhar, S., & Tesar, M. (2015). Politics and practices: Critical provocations for ... more Gibbons, A., Farquhar, S., & Tesar, M. (2015). Politics and practices: Critical provocations for meaningful early mentoring. In C. Murphy & Thornton, K. (Eds.), Mentoring in early childhood education: A compilation of thinking, pedagogy and practice (pp. 211–222). Wellington, New Zealand: NZCER.
Tesar, M. (2015). Power and subjectivities: Foucault and Havel on the complexities of early years... more Tesar, M. (2015). Power and subjectivities: Foucault and Havel on the complexities of early years classroom. In C. Rubie-Davies & J. Stephens (Eds.), The social psychology of the classroom international handbook (pp. 475–492). London, UK: Routledge.
Tesar, M. (2015). Te Whāriki in Aotearoa New Zealand: Witnessing and resisting neoliberal and neo... more Tesar, M. (2015). Te Whāriki in Aotearoa New Zealand: Witnessing and resisting neoliberal and neo-colonial discourses in early childhood education. In V. Pacini-Ketchabaw & A. Taylor (Eds.), Unsettling the colonial places and spaces of early childhood education (pp. 145–170). New York, NY: Routledge.
Tesar, M. (2014). The pedagogy and politics of governing childhoods through images. In I. Semetsk... more Tesar, M. (2014). The pedagogy and politics of governing childhoods through images. In I. Semetsky, A. Stables (Eds.) Pedagogy and Edusemiotics: Theoretical Challenges/Practical Opportunities (pp. 107-120). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Arndt, S., & Tesar, M. (2014). Crossing Borders and Borderlands: Childhood’s Secret Undergrounds.... more Arndt, S., & Tesar, M. (2014). Crossing Borders and Borderlands: Childhood’s Secret Undergrounds. In S. Spyros, M. Christou (Eds.) Children and Borders (pp. 200-213). London, UK: Palgrave/Macmillan.
Tesar, M. (2013). Lessons of Subversion: Ethics and Creativity in Neoliberal Academia. In M. Pete... more Tesar, M. (2013). Lessons of Subversion: Ethics and Creativity in Neoliberal Academia. In M. Peters, T. Besley (Eds.) The Creative University (pp. 103-111). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. doi: 10.1007/978-94-6209-245-7_9
Editorial Board by Marek Tesar
Executive Editors:
Zachary Casey, Rhodes College, Memphis, US
Ondrej Kaščák, Trnava Universit... more Executive Editors:
Zachary Casey, Rhodes College, Memphis, US
Ondrej Kaščák, Trnava University in Trnava, SVK (Lead Editor)
Iveta Kovalčíková, Prešov University in Prešov, SVK
Branislav Pupala, Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava, SVK
Marek Tesar, The University of Auckland, NZ
Andrew Wilkins, University of East London, UK
Editorial Advisory Board:
Stephen Ball, University of London, UK
Jean‑Louis Derouet, Institut National de Recherche Pédagogique, Lyon, France
Francesca Gobbo, University of Turin, Italy
Tomáš Janík, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Alison Jones, University of Auckland, NZ
Mary Koutselini, University of Cyprus, Nicosia
Ivan Lukšík, Trnava University in Trnava, SVK
Tata Mbugua, University of Scranton, US
Peter McLaren, Chapman University, US
Sudarshan Panigrahi, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India
Michael A. Peters, University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ
Sally Power, Cardiff University, Wales, UK
Norbert Ricken, The University of Bremen, Germany
Patricia Scully, University of Maryland, US
Klára Šeďová, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Martin Strouhal, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
Stanislav Štech, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
Richard Tabulawa, University of Botswana, Gaborone
Ikechukwu Ukeje, Kennesaw State University, US
Isabella Wong Yuen Fun, National Institute of Education, Singapore
Christoph Wulf, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
Oľga Zápotočná, Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava, SVK
Jörg Zirfas, Friedrich‑Alexander University Erlangen‑Nürnberg, Germany
Editorial Assistant:
Zuzana Daniskova, Trnava University in Trnava, SVK
Language Editor:
Catriona Menzies
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BOOK CHAPTERS by Marek Tesar
The aim of this chapter is to theorise and propose ways to consolidate and build knowledge about the nature and impact of teacher education on teaching team relationships in Early Childhood Education (ECE). ECE teacher education provides a critical opportunity to study and practice being in a teaching team. In this chapter, we explore the nature of early childhood (EC) teaching teams with a focus on 'knowledge'. The 'knowledge relationships' within teaching teams are complex elements of the EC curriculum that have received little sustained, critical attention in educational research. Two aspects of team relationships are of particular value here because of their capacity to enrich the experiences of teachers and children in ECE: (1) the ways in which new and/or beginning teachers are welcomed into the knowledge community of an EC centre; and (2) the ways in which the sharing and construction of knowledge in a teaching team impacts on teaching and learning in the EC curriculum. These two elements are of significance to teacher education in terms of both how the student experiences the study of teaching as an experience in preparation for being a teaching team member, and how that experience translates into being in a teaching team. The chapter contributes to two essential and ongoing wider research needs identified in Aotearoa New Zealand: the nature and promotion of twenty-first century teaching and learning environments-environments characterised in relation to open, dynamic, and collective knowledge environments; and the experiences of beginning and new teachers as they enter their teaching teams ('new teachers'
A traditional way of writing up research is to outline the concerns and the literature , describe the methodology, and present and analyze the findings. In this chapter, however, we focus on the 'how' of a research project. We do this in the context of an emerging research practice with newly qualified early childhood teachers in Auckland inAotearoa. (Aotearoa is the Maori name for New Zealand. Frequently, Aotearoa and New Zealand are used in conjunction. We use just the Maori name-Aotearoa-in this chapter.) Our research aim is to explore what it means to be pedagogical in diverse social and political early childhood contexts. In the project we will be asking newly qualified teachers to share their experiences with us and to engage in reflective and challenging thinking, to question and evaluate their own, and other more established, practices. In this evolving project, they will share their unique experiences of their workplace relationships and question their own pedagogies. The focus of the chapter is to report on how we are working in a philosophical way through narrative to develop an organic and unpredictable mode of inquiry, in which the methodology and analysis emerge from the action/ people/ events involved in the project. Promoting an organic mode of narrative and discovering method-ological and analytical insights within teachers' narratives is, in short, not always an easy task, when educational discourses are heavily laden with the expectations of traditional research outcomes. We outline some conceptual thinking about how we put together existing scholarship in a playful way, to set about considering the literature and what might be useful thinking as we embark on this project of theorizing pedagogy. We then report on our difficulties in esche,:ving the restrictive nature of frameworks and models in such research and the problem of dominant qualitative discourses seeping in around the edges of our theorizing in unexpected ways. Theorizing What It Means 27 Our theorizing of the project in this way examines how we might work alongside teachers and how we might go about interpreting their experiences and narratives in respectful and ethical ways. Narrative inquiry focuses on the lived experiences of participants, and a philosophical approach invites consideration of ways to think, read, and analyze. Both narrative inquiry and philosophy are open to the possibility that both process and analysis emanate from the research concern itself. With this in mind, teachers will be invited to discuss and write about their lived experiences. Their narratives may intersect-with the ideas that we unfold in our theorizing and conceptualization and may include influences on their pedagogy that we discuss in this chapter-influences such as curriculum initiatives , leadership and management practices, research, and policy. Furthermore, because Auckland is a large urban city, their narratives may also reflect elements of globalization; internationalism; migration; and changing local, social, and cultural practices. However, what emerges will undoubtedly be more complex than this, and the theorizing we suggest here is simply a first engagement with understanding what it might be like to be a newly qualified early childhood teacher. We suspect that pedagogy for each of the teachers in this research will be unique and possibly problematic. It is imagined that this research vvill work at t\;vo levels: to extend participants' own thinking and engagement in collegial debate, and to contribute to critical scholarship about teachers' pedagogy in the early years of teaching. We anticipate working with 12 teachers who have already accepted our invitation to join the group discussions, and we hope that most will continue through the extended narrative work later in the project.
The critical ontology of omselves has to be considered not, certainly, as a theory, a doctiine, nor even as a permanent body of knowledge that is accmnnlating; it has to be conceived as an attitude, an ethos, a philosophical life in which the critique of what we are is at one and the same time the hist01ical analysis of the limits that are imposed on us and an experiment with the possibility of going beyond them. (Foucault, 1984, p. 50) This first volume of Educational Philosophy and Theory: Editor's Choice is focused on a selection of texts from the latter twenty years ofEPAT, selected for their pivotal status as turning points or important awakenings in post-structural theory. The first paper ·Beyond the Philosophy of the Subject: Liberalism, Education and the Critique of Individualism, from which the title of this volume is borrowed, argues t11at subject-centred reasoning is now exhausted, and calls for rethinking, reconceptualising the epistemological subject. The linguistic turn is applied by the most prolific and seminal contemporary thinkers and philosophers of education, to work with and beyond the philosophy of the subject, using prominent philosophers of the twentieth century such as Foucault, Derrida, Nietzsche and Ranciere. The carefully balanced selection in this reader is informed by Fou-cault's thinking of the political subjugation of docile bodies to individuals as self-determining beings continually in the process of constituting themselves as ethical subjects. In this selection, there is also an obvious culmination of amalgamations of different schools of educational philosophy that can fit under the banner of post-structuralist approaches to education. In the last twenty years, as this selection depicts, the applications of the postmodern and post-structuralist perspectives have become less monofocused, less narrowly concerned with technical questions and also perhaps less interested in epistemology and more interested in ethics. This post-structural reader covers the questions of genealogy, ontology, the body and the institution, and it gives examples of theoretical applications of post-structural tl1eory that testify to the generative and endlessly applicable potential of this work to different fields and avenues of thought. Furthermore, contemporary concerns in the philosophy of education have tended to emphasize the challenges to equality and social justice that education systems in modern
Editorial Board by Marek Tesar
Zachary Casey, Rhodes College, Memphis, US
Ondrej Kaščák, Trnava University in Trnava, SVK (Lead Editor)
Iveta Kovalčíková, Prešov University in Prešov, SVK
Branislav Pupala, Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava, SVK
Marek Tesar, The University of Auckland, NZ
Andrew Wilkins, University of East London, UK
Editorial Advisory Board:
Stephen Ball, University of London, UK
Jean‑Louis Derouet, Institut National de Recherche Pédagogique, Lyon, France
Francesca Gobbo, University of Turin, Italy
Tomáš Janík, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Alison Jones, University of Auckland, NZ
Mary Koutselini, University of Cyprus, Nicosia
Ivan Lukšík, Trnava University in Trnava, SVK
Tata Mbugua, University of Scranton, US
Peter McLaren, Chapman University, US
Sudarshan Panigrahi, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India
Michael A. Peters, University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ
Sally Power, Cardiff University, Wales, UK
Norbert Ricken, The University of Bremen, Germany
Patricia Scully, University of Maryland, US
Klára Šeďová, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Martin Strouhal, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
Stanislav Štech, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
Richard Tabulawa, University of Botswana, Gaborone
Ikechukwu Ukeje, Kennesaw State University, US
Isabella Wong Yuen Fun, National Institute of Education, Singapore
Christoph Wulf, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
Oľga Zápotočná, Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava, SVK
Jörg Zirfas, Friedrich‑Alexander University Erlangen‑Nürnberg, Germany
Editorial Assistant:
Zuzana Daniskova, Trnava University in Trnava, SVK
Language Editor:
Catriona Menzies
The aim of this chapter is to theorise and propose ways to consolidate and build knowledge about the nature and impact of teacher education on teaching team relationships in Early Childhood Education (ECE). ECE teacher education provides a critical opportunity to study and practice being in a teaching team. In this chapter, we explore the nature of early childhood (EC) teaching teams with a focus on 'knowledge'. The 'knowledge relationships' within teaching teams are complex elements of the EC curriculum that have received little sustained, critical attention in educational research. Two aspects of team relationships are of particular value here because of their capacity to enrich the experiences of teachers and children in ECE: (1) the ways in which new and/or beginning teachers are welcomed into the knowledge community of an EC centre; and (2) the ways in which the sharing and construction of knowledge in a teaching team impacts on teaching and learning in the EC curriculum. These two elements are of significance to teacher education in terms of both how the student experiences the study of teaching as an experience in preparation for being a teaching team member, and how that experience translates into being in a teaching team. The chapter contributes to two essential and ongoing wider research needs identified in Aotearoa New Zealand: the nature and promotion of twenty-first century teaching and learning environments-environments characterised in relation to open, dynamic, and collective knowledge environments; and the experiences of beginning and new teachers as they enter their teaching teams ('new teachers'
A traditional way of writing up research is to outline the concerns and the literature , describe the methodology, and present and analyze the findings. In this chapter, however, we focus on the 'how' of a research project. We do this in the context of an emerging research practice with newly qualified early childhood teachers in Auckland inAotearoa. (Aotearoa is the Maori name for New Zealand. Frequently, Aotearoa and New Zealand are used in conjunction. We use just the Maori name-Aotearoa-in this chapter.) Our research aim is to explore what it means to be pedagogical in diverse social and political early childhood contexts. In the project we will be asking newly qualified teachers to share their experiences with us and to engage in reflective and challenging thinking, to question and evaluate their own, and other more established, practices. In this evolving project, they will share their unique experiences of their workplace relationships and question their own pedagogies. The focus of the chapter is to report on how we are working in a philosophical way through narrative to develop an organic and unpredictable mode of inquiry, in which the methodology and analysis emerge from the action/ people/ events involved in the project. Promoting an organic mode of narrative and discovering method-ological and analytical insights within teachers' narratives is, in short, not always an easy task, when educational discourses are heavily laden with the expectations of traditional research outcomes. We outline some conceptual thinking about how we put together existing scholarship in a playful way, to set about considering the literature and what might be useful thinking as we embark on this project of theorizing pedagogy. We then report on our difficulties in esche,:ving the restrictive nature of frameworks and models in such research and the problem of dominant qualitative discourses seeping in around the edges of our theorizing in unexpected ways. Theorizing What It Means 27 Our theorizing of the project in this way examines how we might work alongside teachers and how we might go about interpreting their experiences and narratives in respectful and ethical ways. Narrative inquiry focuses on the lived experiences of participants, and a philosophical approach invites consideration of ways to think, read, and analyze. Both narrative inquiry and philosophy are open to the possibility that both process and analysis emanate from the research concern itself. With this in mind, teachers will be invited to discuss and write about their lived experiences. Their narratives may intersect-with the ideas that we unfold in our theorizing and conceptualization and may include influences on their pedagogy that we discuss in this chapter-influences such as curriculum initiatives , leadership and management practices, research, and policy. Furthermore, because Auckland is a large urban city, their narratives may also reflect elements of globalization; internationalism; migration; and changing local, social, and cultural practices. However, what emerges will undoubtedly be more complex than this, and the theorizing we suggest here is simply a first engagement with understanding what it might be like to be a newly qualified early childhood teacher. We suspect that pedagogy for each of the teachers in this research will be unique and possibly problematic. It is imagined that this research vvill work at t\;vo levels: to extend participants' own thinking and engagement in collegial debate, and to contribute to critical scholarship about teachers' pedagogy in the early years of teaching. We anticipate working with 12 teachers who have already accepted our invitation to join the group discussions, and we hope that most will continue through the extended narrative work later in the project.
The critical ontology of omselves has to be considered not, certainly, as a theory, a doctiine, nor even as a permanent body of knowledge that is accmnnlating; it has to be conceived as an attitude, an ethos, a philosophical life in which the critique of what we are is at one and the same time the hist01ical analysis of the limits that are imposed on us and an experiment with the possibility of going beyond them. (Foucault, 1984, p. 50) This first volume of Educational Philosophy and Theory: Editor's Choice is focused on a selection of texts from the latter twenty years ofEPAT, selected for their pivotal status as turning points or important awakenings in post-structural theory. The first paper ·Beyond the Philosophy of the Subject: Liberalism, Education and the Critique of Individualism, from which the title of this volume is borrowed, argues t11at subject-centred reasoning is now exhausted, and calls for rethinking, reconceptualising the epistemological subject. The linguistic turn is applied by the most prolific and seminal contemporary thinkers and philosophers of education, to work with and beyond the philosophy of the subject, using prominent philosophers of the twentieth century such as Foucault, Derrida, Nietzsche and Ranciere. The carefully balanced selection in this reader is informed by Fou-cault's thinking of the political subjugation of docile bodies to individuals as self-determining beings continually in the process of constituting themselves as ethical subjects. In this selection, there is also an obvious culmination of amalgamations of different schools of educational philosophy that can fit under the banner of post-structuralist approaches to education. In the last twenty years, as this selection depicts, the applications of the postmodern and post-structuralist perspectives have become less monofocused, less narrowly concerned with technical questions and also perhaps less interested in epistemology and more interested in ethics. This post-structural reader covers the questions of genealogy, ontology, the body and the institution, and it gives examples of theoretical applications of post-structural tl1eory that testify to the generative and endlessly applicable potential of this work to different fields and avenues of thought. Furthermore, contemporary concerns in the philosophy of education have tended to emphasize the challenges to equality and social justice that education systems in modern
Zachary Casey, Rhodes College, Memphis, US
Ondrej Kaščák, Trnava University in Trnava, SVK (Lead Editor)
Iveta Kovalčíková, Prešov University in Prešov, SVK
Branislav Pupala, Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava, SVK
Marek Tesar, The University of Auckland, NZ
Andrew Wilkins, University of East London, UK
Editorial Advisory Board:
Stephen Ball, University of London, UK
Jean‑Louis Derouet, Institut National de Recherche Pédagogique, Lyon, France
Francesca Gobbo, University of Turin, Italy
Tomáš Janík, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Alison Jones, University of Auckland, NZ
Mary Koutselini, University of Cyprus, Nicosia
Ivan Lukšík, Trnava University in Trnava, SVK
Tata Mbugua, University of Scranton, US
Peter McLaren, Chapman University, US
Sudarshan Panigrahi, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India
Michael A. Peters, University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ
Sally Power, Cardiff University, Wales, UK
Norbert Ricken, The University of Bremen, Germany
Patricia Scully, University of Maryland, US
Klára Šeďová, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Martin Strouhal, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
Stanislav Štech, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
Richard Tabulawa, University of Botswana, Gaborone
Ikechukwu Ukeje, Kennesaw State University, US
Isabella Wong Yuen Fun, National Institute of Education, Singapore
Christoph Wulf, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
Oľga Zápotočná, Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava, SVK
Jörg Zirfas, Friedrich‑Alexander University Erlangen‑Nürnberg, Germany
Editorial Assistant:
Zuzana Daniskova, Trnava University in Trnava, SVK
Language Editor:
Catriona Menzies
Langdon, F., Alexandra, P., Farquhar, S., Tesar, M., Courtney, M., Palmer, M. (2016). Induction and mentoring in early childhood educational organizations: Embracing the complexity of teacher learning in contexts. 57, (150-160).Teaching and Teacher Education. doi: 10.1016/j.tate.2016.03.016
others’ ideas on the political ecology of place in a philosophical examination of vibrant entanglements of “things,” “thinghoods,”
and childhoods. We work with Bennett’s challenge to shift from thinking solely about “think-power” to also
consider “thing-power” and “thing-hood” to take the call for-of things seriously within young children’s place. Matter
has agency that behaves in non-predictable ways, in assemblages, aggregates of powers, and forces and things impacting,
shaping, and molding other matter and things. Children’s daily connectedness with this vibrancy of matter plays out in the
territory of their early years settings as we illustrate through the well-loved stories of Pinocchio and Little Otik. We examine
these dead-alive, wooden-thing-materialities as vibrant thing-hoods with agency and power in a theoretical re-reading
of Foucauldian thought through new materialist philosophies. This article offers an alternative reading of conceptions
of power, discourse, and matter. It provokes further openings and becomings in fresh entanglements, relationships, and
responses by conceptualizing them through particular materialities of childhood stories.
This article examines the effects of edu-capitalism and neoliberal education policies across Australia, New Zealand and United States to disrupt hegemonic policy logic based on neutral human capital. Current frameworks, standards and assessment tools govern and control how early childhood educators see and assess children and in turn develop and implement pedagogy. Issues of gender, class and ethnicity are invisible with the assumption that all children who are offered high-quality early childhood programmes have equal opportunities to be productive and therefore successful citizens. Success can be understood through universal outcomes for children and markers of what quality teaching looks like for educators. This epistemological shutter renders race-, class-and gender-based privilege as invisible or non-existent. In doing so, dominant White Western understandings of the world drive what and who is marked as 'success(ful)', while non-Western knowledge continues to be seen as primitive, insignificant and in need of intervention. Through analysing policy text supported by the work of post-thinkers, the rethinking, re/imagining, and remapping of early childhood that this article performs do not offer consensus but make room for both problematizations of and possibilities within the contemporary concerns of different theoretical and geographical perspectives from Australia, New Zealand and United States.
Strangers, Gods, and monsters are all names for the experience of alterity and otherness within and amongst us. We need monsters in our lives. In this paper we use philosophy as a method to explore language, developmental and cultural instabilities, and terrifying (and discursive) monstrosity located within children's literature and childhood contexts. Philosophy as a method serves as an engagement, an ethical relationship with monstrous thoughts, and as an opening to the philosophical thinking of everyday practices of childhood play (i.e., through objects, practices, language, text, and images). Alongside and through cute, creepy and sublime notions of monsters in children's literature children become monsters–monsters become children. We draw from Derrida's notions of hospitality and hostility and Deleuze and Guattari's deterritorialization of minor literature as well as from literature on monsters, monstrosities, and ugliness. We argue that different representations of childhood monstrosity can help educators and other adults to see the 'productive' in childhood otherness, to consider the always present 'childhood undecidable' (simultaneous presence of cute and creepy) and the generative in infinitely unknown and unrecognizable childhood objects and discourses.
This paper engages with assessment practices in Aotearoa New Zealand. Te Whāriki, the internationally recognized early childhood curriculum framework, lies at the root of contemporary narrative assessment practices, and the concept of learning stories. We outline historical and societal underpinnings of these practices, and elevate the essence of assessment through learning stories and their particular ontological and epistemological aims and purposes. The paper emphasizes early childhood teaching and learning as a complex relational, inter-subjective, material, moral and political practice. It adopts a critical lens and begins from the premise that early childhood teachers are in the best position to make decisions about teaching and learning in their localized, contextualized settings, with and for the children with whom they share it. We examine the notion of effectiveness and 'what works' in assessment, with an emphasis on the importance of allowing for uncertainty, and for the invisible elements in children's learning. Te Whāriki and learning stories are positioned as strong underpinnings of culturally and morally open, rich and complex assessment, to be constantly renegotiated within each local context, in Aotearoa New Zealand and beyond.
Talk about knowledge economies is often the source of great tension for the early childhood teaching profession because of its capacity to polarize views on the kind of role economics should play in the lives of young children. In this article our interest is to show both the pedagogical impact of dominant and narrowing knowledge economy thinking, and also the creative reconceptualization of the idea of an economy to promote a culture of knowledge sharing. The article purposefully employs the idea of the knowledge economy to explore the intimate interactions that occur between early childhood centers and faculties. We are concerned with the ways that a dynamic sum of teacher knowledge forms an economy, and the peda-gogical implications of this economy for the teaching and learning environment. We are interested in inclusive and participatory models of early education, focusing on the richness of sharing knowledge to enhance teaching practice between participants in early childhood communities. Furthermore, we are interested in the nature of knowledge communities in contemporary " 21 st-century " teaching and learning.
Resumo: Os contos de fadas têm um papel importante na educação infantil. As histórias e os livros ilustrados que delas derivam e carregam suas mensagens são instrumentos poderosos que modelam as infâncias. As histórias também fazem parte de todo jardim de infância e dos centros de educação infantil, e o ato de contá-las é uma atividade diária. Este texto sustenta que as histórias, sob qualquer forma, têm por intenção moldar as crianças e as infâncias. Isso é visível por meio das representações de infâncias e crianças contidas nessas histórias e este texto apresenta exemplos de várias culturas e sociedades e de certos sujeitos infantis que são produzidos. As histórias selecionadas aqui ilustram diversas visões sobre a infância e, em particular, seu lugar na Nova Zelândia na atual condição neoliberal. Este texto problematiza a importância das histórias utilizadas com crianças, uma vez que considera potenciais enredos ocultos que permanecem secretos e invisíveis, mas que produzem um discurso igualmente poderoso. O texto analisa o que há por debaixo dos significados óbvios dos belos textos e ilustrações das histórias, sejam elas impressas ou encenadas. Por fim, este texto defende a seleção cuidadosa de histórias para uso em ambientes de primeira infância e difunde a visão de que as histórias são sempre complexas e multifacetadas.
ČO ZNAMENAJÚ POJMY DIEŤA A DETSTVO? INTERDISCIPLINÁRNE PERSPEKTÍVY VÝSKUMU S DEŤMI
A reminder: This text has been created as a series of brut and raw responses representing a collective of " impossible " imaginings. Our collective writing is not about the vision or about insights into the future of qualitative inquiry per se, but it is about ways in which some qualitative researchers wish to stay methodologically and theoretically in flux and motion. We desire to face this uncertainty, rawness, and creative chaos by engaging in collective thinking without constant and continuous purification and " cleaning " efforts. The future of qualitative inquiry is not one but multiple; thus, there cannot be one " vision " but all visions; visions on top of other visions, visions continuing other visions, visions contradicting others, visions lacking and desiring something that cannot be described, understood, or had.
Childhoods and borders are contested categories and spaces. Following the tradition of childhood studies, this article utilizes a wide range of theoretical perspectives on these concerns. The subject of childhood and borders continues to be an underresearched area of study, spanning from notions of global childhoods to localized experiences, and geographical, sociological, anthropological, and philosophical perspectives on childhood and borders. In this article, borders and borderlands and acts of crossing them are argued in both a real and a metaphorical sense. Childhoods are exposed to and experience many types of borders and borderlands, including both real and imaginary experiences. This article addresses these complexities and perspectives. This article contributes to the paradigm shift in research concerning children and childhoods that allows the resurfacing and elevation of traditionally subjugated knowledges and stories. Moreover, forthcoming publications both theorize and tell the narratives of childhood crossing/living/being over/in/with borders and border spaces. This article should therefore be treated as a live commentary that will be regularly updated as new knowledge, ideas, research, and narratives emerge. Children’s voice, participation, experience, and resistance are particularly seminal in this context. This article juxtaposes such influential and seminal sources with texts that may seem more obscure, yet that are important to contextualize issues in local settings with global practices, and to present the breadth and richness of the scope of childhood studies. By exploring borders, boundaries, and borderlands, this article leads also to notions of space, place, and power, and further into constructs of foreigners and strangers, and anthropological, sociological, and philosophical perspectives on childhoods. As borders and borderlands change and evolve in a geographical sense, so do the ideas and notions around them. Borders and borderlands can therefore also be seen as metaphorical, and present a fascinating view of children’s lives and experiences of their childhoods. This article of “Childhood and Borders” thus draws on diverse disciplines to examine notions of borders, boundaries, borderlands, and crossings from actual, real, and metaphorical imagined perspectives. What unites the disciplinary diversity in this article is the focus on the child and childhoods through a childhood studies lens, and the various manifestations of it in relation to children, childhoods, and borders.
The complexities of the ethics and truth in archival research are often unrecognised or invisible in educational research. This paper complicates the process of collecting data in the archives, as it problematises notions of ethics and truth in the archives. The archival research took place in the former Czechoslovakia and its turbulent political history influenced the way data were accessed and collected. The article analyses the productive power of archival institutions and their guardians, and examines the ethical dilemma of discovering sensitive information. Archival institutions hold the secrets that, once uncovered, can have powerful ramifications. It will be argued that the nature of truth in the archives is complex, and the author complicates and challenges the perception that archives are ethically neutral research spaces that do not need to consider approval from research ethics committees.