Abstracts for papers that have been accepted will be uploaded as they become available.
| Presenter/s |
Presentation Title |
Abstract |
| Mr Prasong Saihong, Doctoral Student, Early Intervention Program, College of Education, University of Oregon |
The Use of an Activity-Based Intervention approach (ABI) for Children with and without Disabilities |
This presentation focuses on the use of Activity-Based Intervention Approach (ABI) in ECSE/EI settings. ABI components are 1) child-directed, routine, and planned activities, 2) multiple and varied learning opportunities, 3) functional and generative goals, and 4) timely and integral feedback or consequences (Pretti-Frontczak & Bricker, 2004). The presentation will discuss the application of the ABI in early childhood settings in Eugene, Oregon, USA and Northeast Thailand. |
| Ms Angel Chan, Unitec Institute of Technology, New Zealand |
Critical multiculturalism: Struggle of multiculturalism within a bicultural context |
Multiculturalism has been embraced by many countries to recognise learning rights and needs of ethnic minority children for decades, but it fails to deliver what it promises, especially within New Zealand bicultural context. This presentation argues for critical multiculturalism to address inequity of citizenships between ethnicities that multiculturalism perpetuates. |
| Dr ZSuzsa Millei, School of Education, University of Newcastle |
So, what about classroom discipline? Guidance approaches and equity |
Guidance approaches to classroom discipline claim that they grant more freedom to children and empower them in opposition to the control that ‘traditional’ discipline approaches impose on children. This paper questions this claim and suggests that guidance approaches control to a greater extent. |
| Denise Rundle, Helen Lenga, Khanh-Tho Nguyen, Si Ling Vong, Helen King and Carly Buckland, Boroondara Kindergarten |
Building stronger connections within a diverse kindergarten learning community. |
Creating and maintaining reciprocal relationships with and between children, families and teachers underpins our philosophy and practice. The kindergarten is examining attachment theory through the lens of cultural diversity and differing parenting practices to further understand the way in which children act and respond. We are seeking alternatives to Western-orientated behaviour modification techniques based on positive/negative consequences. |
Lynn Farrell, Mariam Christodoulos and Penelope Savage, The Infant’s Home Child & Family Services |
A Children’s Charter |
The development of A Children’s Charter for a multi disciplinary integrated service was not as easy as first considered; several questions were raised:
1. How could this process be meaningful for children rather than a ‘gift’ from adults? We wanted more than tokenistic participation which we saw as counterproductive to our aim.
2. How could we conceptualise this for children, families and staff? We wanted a cultural shift that saw children’s views as more than valued and respected but embedded and integral to decision making.
3. How could we facilitate the cooperation and commitment of adults? We wanted to challenge any doubt about young children’s capacity to have meaningful input into decision making; dismantle concerns in regards to the effort required; and confront the view that providing opportunities for children to have more control and decision making would undermine adult authority.
This session will attempt to answer these questions and pose further questions for consideration through looking at the journey the children, families and staff travelled in their pursuit of A Children’s Charter. |
| Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw, School of Child and Youth Care, University of Victoria;
Pam Whitty,
Faculty of Education, University of New Brunswick and Iris Berger,
Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia |
Transforming Images of Children within the Canadian Context |
The symposium includes two papers from Canada. The first paper interrogates how British Columbian early childhood educators negotiate their practices as they imagine children as full of potential and contributor citizens. The second paper examines recently produced co-curricular texts from New Brunswick, specifically public representations of children’s knowledge, views and participation in the context of re-imagining child care spaces as democratic sites. |
Ling Wu, University of Warwick |
The pupils’ perspective on good teachers and teaching – A comparative study in the UK and Mainland China |
This research investigates UK and Chinese student’s perspectives on good teacher and teaching. Based on pupils’ voice, findings were interpreted in comparison the similarity and difference between the two cultures. Innovation of each culture was suggested. |
| Mathias Urban, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg |
Risky Questions? From knowledge-production-and-application to hermeneutic inquiry in early childhood education |
Starting from a critical analysis of prevailing conceptualisations of adult actors in early childhood the paper explores an alternative paradigm of a relational, systemic professionalism, understood as dialogic inquiry that embraces messiness, openness and uncertainty, and encourages co-construction of professional knowledges and practices. The argument will be illustrated by ‘snapshots’ from different countries. |
| Gillian Schroeder & Melanie Grabski, Family Planning Queensland |
Healthy and Informed: Learning about sexuality in early childhood |
When children have the skills, language and knowledge to care for and talk about their bodies, develop and maintain healthy relationships, and respect others, they are able to participate effectively in society as a healthy citizen.This presentation will examine a rationale for sexuality education in early childhood, presenting sexuality as a integral part of health and wellbeing.
The presenters are sexuality eduators who work in the field of early childhood and avdocate in the sector to parents, carers and early childhood professionals, to support healthy sexual development in young children. |
Anne Yaloot, April Jones, Lisa Smith and Rebecca Smith from Bayulu Community via Fitzroy Crossing, Western Australia with Vicki Hynam the Learning Exchange Coordinator and Liz Thomas from Kimberly TAFE
|
Growing stronger Indigenous children in the West Kimberley - Learning on Country 1 |
Anne Yaloot, April Jones, Lisa Smith and Rebecca Smith from Bayulu Community via Fitzroy Crossing, Western Australia with Vicki Hynam the Learning Exchange Coordinator and Liz Thomas from Kimberly TAFE; will outline their journey to build more culturally responsive and respectful ways of growing strong children in the West Kimberley in the action research project: Children, Carer and Country (CCC). This session will focus on the inter-relatedness between access to transport and the capacity of Indigenous communities in the West Kimberley to grow strong children. Women from the Baylulu community will explain how a key motivator for a vehicle grant application was so that they can drive out on country and support children’s ‘learning on country’. They will talk about what ‘learning on country’ means and how ‘learning on country’ is critical to creating culturally relevant learning spaces for Indigenous children. |
Patricia Dick, Marcia Cook, Helen Fitzgerald from Marninwarntikura Women’s Resource Centre in Fitzroy Crossing, Western Australia with Liz Thomas from Kimberley College of TAFE and Vicki Hynam Children, Care and Country Project
|
Growing stronger Indigenous children in the West Kimberley - Learning on Country 2 |
Patricia Dick, Marcia Cook, Helen Fitzgerald from Marninwarntikura Women’s Resource Centre in Fitzroy Crossing, Western Australia with Liz Thomas from Kimberley College of TAFE and Vicki Hynam Children, Care and Country project will present the journey of collaboration between these 3 entities to develop strong relationships for through learning exchange meetings.
Learning Exchange meetings have influenced the content and style of delivery of TAFE training for Indigenous and non-Indigenous children’s services staff within the West Kimberley. TAFE content is being made more culturally respectful and relevant drawing on processes and ideas explored within the Children, Carer and Country Learning Exchanges. The session will explore how this learning influenced practices in the field by students/practitioners. using a case study of the Mobile playgroup and how it approaches creating learning spaces for children in remote communities. |
Professor Louise Derman-Sparks, Pacific Oaks College
|
Anti-Bias Education with "White" Young Children & Families. |
Until recently, almost all multicultural and anti-bias educational work did not address the identity issues of "white" children in a society where institutional racism provided systemic advantage to people designated as "white". Instead, the work focused on what happens to children who are the systemic targets of racism. However, over the years, one of the most frequent questions of teachers attending anti-bias workshops has been, "What do I do if all the kids are white?" Now, the study of "whiteness" has become part of academic diversity/equity work. Patricia Ramsey and I decided to explore and write about what it means to work with young white children, who are at the beginning of their construction of white identity, as well as attitudes towards others. We wanted to open up much needed discussion within early childhood education. This workshop is about what we learned. It will be interactive - calling on participants to consider what the learning themes and strategic guidelines we developed for children in the USA might look like for children in their own country/ies. |
Associate Professor Karen Martin, Southern Cross University
|
Beyond the Apology: Clearing the Spaces and Yarning |
This workshop is an opportunity to come together, to clear spaces and to yarn some of the key points raised in the keynote address. Come along and we'll work together on what's required to 'clear a space in the workshop' where we can yarn what it means to be an Australia post Apology. |
Associate Professor Dr Wajuppa Tossa, Mahasarakham University
|
Songs, Dance, and Games in Storytelling |
This workshop give samples of songs that tell stories and storytelling incorporating songs, dance, and games as well as sample activities that can be used before, during, and after presenting storytelling performances to young people. The workshop ends with sharing and discussion of how to add songs, dance, and games in storytelling. The audience will learn to tell some sample stories and practice adding songs, dance, and/or games in storytelling. |
| Ms Lisa McKay-Brown, University of Melbourne |
Does peace education work? Exploring the experiences of children involved in a violence prevention process |
Violence, both structural and direct are present in educational settings. Peace education can challenge violence and transform schools into safe places for children. This paper will present the findings of PhD research into the experiences of children participating in a peace education program in a school and discuss the implications for peace education as a transforming practice. |
| Professor Martin Woodhead, The Open University |
UNCRC General Comment 7: background, progress and challenges |
During 2005 I was invited to serve as Special Adviser to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in drafting of General Comment 7 on ‘Implementing Child Rights in Early Childhood’, formally adopted by the Committee in September 2005. The aim of the General Comment is to offer interpretive comment and guidance related specifically to young children. I will introduce the background and review key messages, as a starting point for discussion about progress and challenges in realising the rights of the young child. |
Dr Kylie Smith, CEIEC, University of Melbourne |
Observation, documenting and reporting outcomes in Australian early childhood classrooms |
Drawing from data from an Early Career research project funded by the University of Melbourne this paper explores whether, how and to what extent early childhood professionals acknowledge equity and social justice as they observe and document children’s learning and development. This small-scale research project invited early childhood practictioners througout Australia working in kindergarten and long day care to examine and identify what observational templates they use in practice when observing and assessing young children in the early childhood classroom and what theoretical understandings they draw on to interpret these observations when considering issues of equity and social justice |
Ms Jane Page, CEIEC, University of Melbourne & Ms Shari Stewart, MacKinnon Collaborative Practice Centre (MCPC), Royal Children’s Hospital |
A case for consulting children in hospital settings |
International research highlights that children are not consulted in hospitals despite the numerous benefits it has for children and healthcare professionals. In addition there is a paucity of research–based evidence about how best to conceptualise and practice consulting children in hospital settings. This paper will outline the benefits of consulting children in hospitals for children and healthcare professionals and highlight some of the key challenges that exist in realising young children’s rights to be consulted in hospital settings. |
| Dr Kylie Smith, CEIEC, University of Melbourne |
The trials, tribulation and triumphs of enacting children’s citizenship in local government |
This workshop will bring representatives from local governments together to discuss their journeys in enacting children’s citizenship in their local governments. They will engage with five key questions to examine what supports this work occurring and what makes this work difficult to implement. These questions are:
1. What is one key area/service/document that highlights how children’s citizenship is enacted in your organisation?
2. What has made it possible to introduce children’s citizenship into the local government organisation?
3. What has restricted or made it hard to implement children’s citizenship in your organisation?
4. What lessons have you learnt through the journey so far?
5. What directions are you hoping to take children’s citizenship in the future in your organisation? |
Dr Karina Davis, Prasanna Srinvasan & Prof. Glenda MacNaughton, CEIEC University of Melbourne |
“This is not about ‘race’”: Exploring racism and social justice within and through curriculum |
This presentation will explore the intersections and possibilities of using postcolonial and critical whiteness theories as tools for critical analyses in exploring how cultural diversity and ‘race’ are located within pedagogical and curriculum practices and will draw from research data from primary school teachers in Melbourne, Australia to highlight this. |
| Robyn Burnett, Roslyn Von Senden, Janice Rocca, Tara Franks & Barry Watson, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children's Services Leadership Alliance |
Sharing the Vision and Journey of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children's Services Leadership Alliance |
Workforce development strategies addressing skill shortages in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Services is crucial. Inspiring others to work collaboratively for change within their areas of responsibility in children's services is essential if the life chances of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and communities are to be improved. |
| Dr Affrica Taylor, University of Canberra |
Rethinking the Nature of Childhood |
Since Rousseau wrote Emile (1762), his famous treatise on childhood and 'natural' education, childhood and nature have been conflated in Western thinking. This paper will use some recent retheorisings of 'nature' to help prise apart childhood and nature and to rethink the concept of childhood and its relationship to adulthood. |
| Dr Linda Knight, University of Canberra |
Deleuzian Dolls: Subverting mother/daughter identities through intergenerational collaborative drawing |
The paper platforms collaborative drawings produced around mother/daughter identities to explore Deleuzian and Deleuzian/Guattarian concepts of desire and rhizome. Unpredictable connections to things experienced, known, conceptualized, imagined enables re-examination of how young children learn. The paper concludes by using the drawings to facilitate discussion on subverting dominant early childhood discourses. |
| Prasanna Srinivasan, CEIEC, University of Melbourne |
Languages matter-my subjective postcolonial struggle. |
This paper discusses a colonised subject's ongoing tussles with dominance that are inherent in resistant subjectivities. The desire to subvert colonial dominance in a 'resistant colonised subject' also demands the very same subject to take on certain colonial attributes. Thus, torn between loyalties, the paper explores, how language associated with subjective identities is constantly negotiated to explore diversities in postcolonial spaces. |
| Ms Sue Atkinson-Lopez, CEIEC, University of Melbourne |
Adults constructing the young child race and racism |
This paper is based on findings from my doctoral research 'Indigenous self-determination and early childhood education and care in Victoria' where the majority of the interviewees employed colonial constructions of the child as innocent or ignorant of race. In spite of this both Indigenous and non Indigenous children were described as understanding colonial concepts of Aboriginality as undesirable and employing these within earlychildhoodprograms and beyond.This paper will discuss these findings and the implications for early childhood practioners. |
| Susanne Rogers, Penny Cook & Margaret Creeper, DECS, South Australia |
Reconceptualising Reception - a practitioner inquiry project |
The intent of the project is to build on the pedagogy in the first year of school so that it best matches the characteristics of young children’s learning as they make the transition to school from earlier prior to school experiences. Practitioner inquiry, involving deep reflection, has lead to pedagogical change maximising opportunities for the continuity of learning and improved learning outcomes for all children in the first year of school. |
| Dr Patrick Hughes, CEIEC, University of Melbourne |
Young citizens for social justice: An video festival |
This session will screen several videos made by children about children's rights and issues of social justice in their world and videos made for children by adults about children's rights and issues of social justice. Participants will be invited to engage in critical dialogue about each group of films and to explore their implications for advancing children's citizenship through their relationship to filmmaking. |
| Ms Merlyne Cruz, CEIEC, University of Melbourne |
Diversity, Decolonization, and Praxis of Citizenship |
This paper is based on my personal explorations on how my teaching and research experiences have etched decolonizing pathways for me. It describes my critical reflections on internalized values that have impacted my commitment to honor diversity. This paper likewise presents the struggles I face as I endeavour to shift my terrains of knowledge and engage in praxis of citizenship. |
Ms Elizabeth Muller, University of the Sunshine Coast |
The 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child: its significance for Child Care Services in Australia |
This paper draws on the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to investigate the extent to which current policy, practices and procedures in long day care services in Australia acknowledge young children's rights and to propose changes to enhance children's rights in long day care services. |
Prof. Collette Tayler & Dan Cloney, Melbourne Graduate School of Education |
Current Australian ECEC provision: Addressing questions of quality equity and diversity in a mixed market economy |
Australias mixed market approach to the provision of early childhood services raises problems in prviding high quality, equitable provision across diverse locations. This paper explains the basic economic theory underpinning the system and the challenges in achieving the long-term outcomes that are promised by effective ECEC. |
| Ms Margaret M Coady, CEIEC, University of Melbourne |
The right that we never talk about |
Many philosophers have raised doubts about the kinds of rights which children can be said to have. Now in Oxford University a new voice is claiming that children have a right which has not had much recognition, namely the right to be loved. This conference paper is an account of a conversation with Dr Matthew Liao on his views on that topic. |
Ms Jane Page, CEIEC, University of Melbourne & Ms Shari Stewart, MacKinnon Collaborative Practice Centre (MCPC), Royal Children’s Hospital |
Emotions and young children's participation |
This presentation will draw on two research projects that explored the relationship between emotions and citizenship in young children’s lives. It will highlight key findings concerning young children’s capacity to enact citizenship as a practice of participation and the role of emotions in this process in 1) their relationships with friends in early childhood settings and 2) in their relationships with healthcare professionals in a children's hospital. |
Lyn Fasoli, Jude Maglis & Selina Grant, Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education |
The Northern Territory ‘Intervention’: Struggling to imagine and practice citizenship rights for children and adults in remote indigenous communities |
This presentation will report on findings from a participatory action research project that investigated remote Indigenous child care workers' perspectives on the recent Australian Government 'Intervention' into remote communities. |
Associate Professor Alma Fleet & Ros Kitson, IEC Macquarie |
White women writing: Complexities of walking in the borderlands |
This story embraces a tangled web of good intentions, empathy, privilege, advocacy and opportunity. Researching as a team includes the human courtesies involved in respecting one’s co-researchers. When the investigation involves sharing stories of peoples’ lives, the field becomes increasingly complex. Having tried to foreground both Indigenous and academic voices in the past; we now feel obliged to share our own. |
Ms Alison Wunungmurra Gadayyur, Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education |
My Journey as an Indigenous Child Care Teacher |
This presentation will describe my journey as a remote Indigenous woman, mother and child care worker from the community of Gapuwiyak in north east Arnhem Land, Northern Territory to becoming a child care teacher in Darwin where I help Indigenous workers in other remote communities to develop their child care service. |
| Ms Cassandra Kotsanas & Ms Jill Anick, University of Melbourne |
Questions of support and sustainability: Researching the realities of enacting child participation in early childhood settings |
As awareness of children’s rights as citizens grows, more early childhood educators are making changes to the way they practice. Using emerging findings from two Masters research projects-in-process we will discuss the factors necessary to sustain new practices, as identified by a group of kindergarten teachers implementing a democratic curricular model and a group attempting to increase children’s participation in their daily lives in children’s services. |
| Miriam Giugni, University of Melbourne |
Equity in everyday routines in early childhood |
This presentation shares an overview of a PhD study exploring how educators work for equity in everyday routines. It offers some insights into the discourses that produce early childhood education, the child and the early childhood educator in how routines and constructed and practiced. It specifically looks at the extent to which equity is present in these discourses. Drawing from Deleuze and Guattari, questions are raised about how to re-think equity in routines that are transformational becomings. |
| Bill Sparks, East Los Angeles College |
Increasing Oral Language Development for the Child Who Is Not Currently Producing Complex Language. (Hint - She/He wants to talk about themselves and their peers.) |
Schools are instructing kindergarteners in reading programs without regard to their facility in oral language. School programs are mainstreaming children with mild disabilities that are often manifesting low languiage production. The increase in oral language and self-awareness of language development in the young child shows increased literacy success. |
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