Jane Murray
Professor Jane Murray researches, teaches and has written extensively in the field of education with special focus on early childhood education and issues of social inclusion. She is Co-Director of the Centre for Education and Research.
Jane's research and consultancy work ranges from local neighbourhood and school projects to her PI roles in research commissioned by the National Gallery and the European Commission, and Co-I roles in the £30 million Teaching and Learning Research Program (TLRP) in the UK and in international projects for UNICEF. Jane's international profile also includes teacher CPD overseas, including Georgia and Estonia, and she has advised governments on Education matters in various countries including Estonia, Bhutan, Ethiopia and the UK. Jane is Editor-in-Chief for the International Journal of Early Years Education, a Routledge peer-reviewed journal.
Jane holds first, Master's and PhD degrees in Education and the UK National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH) and she is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in England (SFHEA). Jane is also a qualified teacher and she worked as a teacher and a consultant for two decades in early childhood settings and primary schools in England before moving to work in higher education. Jane was a programme leader in Initial Teacher Education and led the MA in Education Early Years pathway at the University of Northampton, where she teaches and supervises on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes and supervises PhD students, having ten successful PhD completions to date.
Jane is a member of the European Early Childhood Educational Research Association (EECERA) for which she co-convenes the Young Children's Perspectives Special Interest Group. Jane is a Professional Affiliate of the Chartered College of Teaching and she also holds membership of AdvanceHE, TACTYC (Training, Advancement and Co-operation in Teaching Young Children), OMEP (l'Organisation Mondiale pour l'Éducation Préscolaire).
Jane's research and consultancy work ranges from local neighbourhood and school projects to her PI roles in research commissioned by the National Gallery and the European Commission, and Co-I roles in the £30 million Teaching and Learning Research Program (TLRP) in the UK and in international projects for UNICEF. Jane's international profile also includes teacher CPD overseas, including Georgia and Estonia, and she has advised governments on Education matters in various countries including Estonia, Bhutan, Ethiopia and the UK. Jane is Editor-in-Chief for the International Journal of Early Years Education, a Routledge peer-reviewed journal.
Jane holds first, Master's and PhD degrees in Education and the UK National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH) and she is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in England (SFHEA). Jane is also a qualified teacher and she worked as a teacher and a consultant for two decades in early childhood settings and primary schools in England before moving to work in higher education. Jane was a programme leader in Initial Teacher Education and led the MA in Education Early Years pathway at the University of Northampton, where she teaches and supervises on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes and supervises PhD students, having ten successful PhD completions to date.
Jane is a member of the European Early Childhood Educational Research Association (EECERA) for which she co-convenes the Young Children's Perspectives Special Interest Group. Jane is a Professional Affiliate of the Chartered College of Teaching and she also holds membership of AdvanceHE, TACTYC (Training, Advancement and Co-operation in Teaching Young Children), OMEP (l'Organisation Mondiale pour l'Éducation Préscolaire).
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Publications by Jane Murray
importance of investing in early childhood development and
increasingly monitor that investment using standardized measurement,
the nature and rationale of early childhood education and care (ECEC)
provision remain diverse. In the context of that disparity, this article
explores an aspect of ECEC provision that is commonly recognized for
its potential to enhance young children’s development and learning, yet
for which characteristics remain variable: partnerships between ECEC
practitioners and parents. The article reports and discusses results from
a cross-cultural narrative study that investigated the nature of such
partnerships in three different countries: England, Hungary and
Kazakhstan. During focus group interviews, ECEC academics (n = 16)
discussed five themes that emerged from literature reviews. Findings
indicate more differences than similarities between the countries’
narratives concerning ECEC parent-practitioner partnerships, suggesting
such partnerships may be an aspect of ECEC provision for which a
homogeneous approach and quality measure across countries are not
feasible.
This exciting global collection of empirical research reports and discursive papers provides inspiration to spark new reflections, fresh debates, and innovative endeavours among early childhood students, practitioners, researchers, and policymakers around the world. This book was originally published as a special issue of Early Child Development and Care.
Outstanding leaders and excellent practitioners in early childhood education understand the importance of interweaving knowledge about their practice and their children with evidence based research and theories in our field. This book is a framework that brings together these aspects to understand young children’s actions. Drawing on research findings from the Young Children as Researchers (YCAR) project, the book shows how young children construct knowledge when they are engaging in their everyday activities at home and in their early childhood settings, in ways that are congruent with research behaviour.
•• identifies conflicts between children’s participation and protection rights
•• considers dilemmas and difficulties of judging children’s competence in relation to participation
importance of investing in early childhood development and
increasingly monitor that investment using standardized measurement,
the nature and rationale of early childhood education and care (ECEC)
provision remain diverse. In the context of that disparity, this article
explores an aspect of ECEC provision that is commonly recognized for
its potential to enhance young children’s development and learning, yet
for which characteristics remain variable: partnerships between ECEC
practitioners and parents. The article reports and discusses results from
a cross-cultural narrative study that investigated the nature of such
partnerships in three different countries: England, Hungary and
Kazakhstan. During focus group interviews, ECEC academics (n = 16)
discussed five themes that emerged from literature reviews. Findings
indicate more differences than similarities between the countries’
narratives concerning ECEC parent-practitioner partnerships, suggesting
such partnerships may be an aspect of ECEC provision for which a
homogeneous approach and quality measure across countries are not
feasible.
This exciting global collection of empirical research reports and discursive papers provides inspiration to spark new reflections, fresh debates, and innovative endeavours among early childhood students, practitioners, researchers, and policymakers around the world. This book was originally published as a special issue of Early Child Development and Care.
Outstanding leaders and excellent practitioners in early childhood education understand the importance of interweaving knowledge about their practice and their children with evidence based research and theories in our field. This book is a framework that brings together these aspects to understand young children’s actions. Drawing on research findings from the Young Children as Researchers (YCAR) project, the book shows how young children construct knowledge when they are engaging in their everyday activities at home and in their early childhood settings, in ways that are congruent with research behaviour.
•• identifies conflicts between children’s participation and protection rights
•• considers dilemmas and difficulties of judging children’s competence in relation to participation
The empirical study that is the focus for the thesis secured a taxonomy of research behaviours from professional adult researchers which was then applied to naturalistic observations conducted with - and by - children aged 4-8 years in their settings and homes. A ‘jigsaw’ methodology was adopted, featuring constructivist grounded theory and critical ethnography, among other methodologies. Throughout, the project was committed to participatory, emancipatory and inductive principles, though challenges were encountered along the way. Alongside observations, multiple other methods and analysis were employed in the co-construction of data with children and their practitioners in three English early childhood settings and children and their parents in five homes. Professional adult researchers also contributed to primary and meta-data.
Results indicated that problem solving, exploring, conceptualising and basing decisions on evidence were regarded by professional researchers as the ‘most important’ research behaviours. Children engaged in these behaviours of their own volition, alongside other research behaviours. Their activities included exploring materials to create novel artefacts in art work, rolling in giant cylinders, cooking and ordering objects systematically. While undertaking these activities, children often revealed higher order cognitive processes such as trial and error elimination, causality, analogy and a posteriori conceptualisation.
The study produced a ‘plausible account’ suggesting that children aged 4-8 years do engage in research activity naturalistically as part of their daily lives and that this activity is congruent with professional adult researchers’ behaviours. "
Armstrong, S., Barker, J., Davey, R., Diosi, M., Horton, J., Kraftl, P., Lumsden, E., Marandet, E., Matthews, H., Murray, J., Pyer, M. and Smith, F. (2005). Evaluation of Play Provision and Play Needs in the London Borough of Redbridge. Northampton: Centre for Children and Youth, University of Northampton. ISBN 1-900868-50-4.
Delegates who attended this invited keynote were early childhood teachers, setting leaders and policymakers from Estonia and Finland. In the keynote, I pictured quality, professionalism and leadership in early childhood education and care by defining, envisaging, framing and problematising each aspect, before exploring possibilities for moving forward.
children construct knowledge by basing their decisions on evidence and to promote social justice by
revealing young children as agents who make decisions based on evidence. An argument is constructed suggesting that recognition of young children’s decision-making based on
evidence as an element in their constructions of knowledge can empower children as social agents.
Designed according to the academy’s protocols, the YCARstudy was driven principally by a value
orientation framed by emancipatory, participatory and inductive approaches. Plural paradigms, a ‘jigsaw methodology’ and multiple methods gave primacy to participants: 138 children aged 4-8 years in three English early childhood settings participated, joined by their practitioners, families and professional researchers. Whilst the study complied with BERA guidelines (2004), its ethical progress was secured by its value orientation. Participating academy members identified the basis of decisions on evidence as ‘important’ research behaviour. Subsequently, analysis and meta-analysis of data with participants revealed participating children aged 4-8 years as agents who based decisions on evidence according to certain factors and adopted this behaviour for constructing and applying knowledge. The study indicates that ways in which participating young children construct knowledge by basing decisions on evidence carry important messages for practitioners, policymakers and the academy.
Through interview conversations, focus group and a nominal grouping exercise, perspectives of established academy members (n=47) regarding research were gathered, resulting in the identification of four research behaviours academy members identified as ‘most important’: exploration, finding solutions, conceptualisation and the basing of decisions on evidence. Furthermore, the academy members indicated theoretical sampling and consequently, 138 children aged 4-8 years in three early childhood settings and five homes in one English Midlands town participated, together with their parents and practitioners. Children’s everyday naturalistic behaviours were co-constructed through gathering, analysis and meta-analysis of data; in this process, features of critical ethnography integrated coherently with the other instruments forming the jigsaw methodology. Many examples of the four most important key research behaviours presented in children’s naturalistic activities; factors affecting or effecting these behaviours included children’s applications of prior experiences, their innovations, their autonomy, their dispositions and their interactions with material contexts as well as social and cognitive domains.
In this study conducted according to the academy’s own protocols, young children’s engagements in research behaviours the academy regards as ‘most important’ were established in ways that suggest the children’s forms of knowledge construction are valid and their voices authoritative. In the research process, the utility of critical ethnography was manifest in form and function: it integrated effectively with other methodologies to create a ‘jigsaw methodology’ that facilitated participatory, emancipatory and inductive approaches. Critical ethnography was also valuable as a vehicle for reifying social justice: the study outcomes reveal a rationale for challenging young children’s exclusion from the academy.
• How can children aged 0-8 years be conceptualised as researchers?
• What warrants may be established for young children’s research?
• What factors may support or inhibit young children’s research?
• How might young children’s research be disseminated and used?
Montessori (1916), Isaacs (1930) and Piaget (1963) brought scientific rationality to early childhood research, creating new ways for young children’s thoughts, actions and voices to be captured. ECEC research has developed exponentially in recent years, increasingly acknowledging young children’s capable constructions of knowledge in matters affecting them and building a view of the child as whole and capable . However, the English ECEC context persists in viewing children as deficient. Drawing on emancipatory discourse, this qualitative study is located within a constructivist grounded theory approach and draws on ethnographic case study. Ethical developments in the field are acknowledged and addressed.
Findings empirically establish ‘academy’ characterisations of ‘research’ and demonstrate children’s owned constructions of knowledge as authentically manifested within this framework. However, such constructions are frequently disregarded by those influencing children’s experiences in English ECEC settings. The potential for young children’s personal epistemologies to provide warrant for policy decisions in England would benefit from further exploration.
1) Young children's agency;
2) Psychological insights into young children’s cognition;
3) Emancipatory research methodologies.
The project investigates four young English children's constructions of understanding within the cultural contexts they inhabit and ways in which policies and practices may affect their ontological development. Interview conversations, focus group discussions and observations are employed as part of a small-scale, ethnographic case study series located within constructivist grounded theory . Ethical issues are a prime consideration. Findings suggest that young children younger than 8 years seem able to engage in warranted research behaviours and these may have the potential to indicate directions of travel for policy in matters affecting them. However, some children may be so directed in their ECEC settings and homes that they have few opportunities to engage in natural research behaviours. Positioning young children as researchers may present significant challenges for professional researchers; this would benefit from further exploration.
This paper reports on early stages of a project that aims to establish, through e-mail survey to headteachers and interviews, the extent to which reflective practice is occurring in early years settings in one area of the UK. The study looked initially at practitioners’ perceptions of their own reflective practice and continues by considering the perceptions of both children and practitioners in supporting children. It is intended that this project may form the basis for action by academics to enable practitioners and children to develop reflective practice and to provide a vehicle for wider dissemination, thereby valuing children and practitioners as researchers.