Melbourne Early Career Researcher Grants

Project Title: Observation, documenting and reporting outcomes in Australian early childhood classrooms.

Chief Investigator: Dr Kylie Smith

Funded by: 2008 Early Career Researcher Grant Scheme

Project Summary: This project 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. The project will generate empirical data concerning current practices and policies; and it will use a multi-layered poststructuralist discourse analysis to show whether current practices and policies embody measures of successful development that are value-free or culture-bound. The early childhood field has paid virtually no attention to the place of equity and social justice within observation and documentation, so this project is significant theoretically and practically, with implications for pre-service training, policy and practice.