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This study investigates ad hoc and planned efforts by kindergarten principals in Singapore to build structures, processes and culture to support learning. The scope includes what principals do on the average, variations in leadership practices and reasons for these variations. Mindful that reality can be both single and multiple, a philosophical stance of pragmatism was adopted. A pluralistic approach combining inductive and deductive strategies, with an orientation towards “what works” was used. A convergent mixed methods design with a survey targeting the population of kindergarten principals and a multi-case study involving seven kindergartens was adopted. The survey, based on a modified version of Youngs and King’s (2002) theoretical framework on capacity building, provided information on patterns of common leadership practices. The multi-case study added granularity by providing possible reasons for variations and unearthing points that have not been included in the conceptual framework. Findings from the two parts were analysed and triangulated to provide the overall findings. The findings suggest that principals spend 40% of their time supporting teaching and learning. On professional development of teachers, individual learning activities were favoured over group activities. Principals and teachers of Funded kindergartens were involved in a wider range of professional learning activities and in greater frequency compared to their Non-Funded counterparts. The findings also suggest that a coordinated system that incorporates the selection and preparation of potential leaders, and the continuous professional and leadership development of the incumbents is needed. There is also a need to build centre- and sector-wide infrastructures to support the continuous learning of teachers. As there was broad correspondence between the key constructs of the accreditation (SPARK) instrument and the theoretical framework for capacity building, and kindergartens had responded to SPARK by sending their teachers for SPARK training, SPARK could be further tapped on for capacity building.

This research examines how different kinds of nursery organisation and priorities influenced the intimacy of interactions between staff and children under three. By intimacy is meant the conditions in which secure attachments may be fostered. A case study design was used and between four and six months was spent in each of four nurseries chosen to be as different from each other as possible. Data was collected from documentation, staff questionnaires, staff interviews, child observations and a fieldwork diary. The data was analysed using open systems theory and a psychoanalytic model of organisational functioning, focussing particularly on the role of social defence systems as possible barriers to intimacy. Even this small number of nurseries, despite many common features, showed major differences in funding (maintained versus market approaches), organisation for attachments (key persons versus key groups) and priorities for children (educational versus relational outcomes). All four nurseries achieved a great deal, vigilant physical safety of the children and opportunities for play and interaction with others. Yet the data also showed how three of these four nurseries were only able to give limited attention to the emotional demands of nursery work. The consequence of this appeared to be that staff in these nurseries avoided close individual engagement with children and parents. The youngest children, particular those under one, experienced considerably distress, partnership with parents was not developed, there was little support for children's individual learning and staff stress was high. A starting point of the study was that nurseries that were explicitly containing of staff anxiety about intimacy would be ones where staff were able to allow children to be emotionally close. The study however showed a more complex picture of containment and the significance of implicit containment arising from good management. The study has also shown a provisional typology of nursery types with differing relative advantages and disadvantages. Further research would allow the complete range of nursery types available to be explored thus facilitating policy options and choices

The research aimed to explore the role of professionals and family members who support the education and care experience of Scottish children aged one to two years who are considered to be ‘at risk’ in Scottish Government early intervention policy statements. It employed a feminist poststructuralist paradigm based on the Foucauldian concepts of governmentality and subjectification and a genealogical approach to literature review. The small-scale ethnographic case study was set in the Baby Room of a Scottish early childhood education and care (ECEC) centre where these children were allocated funded places. Ten children were placed in the role of ‘boundary objects’ and data collection focused on human and non-human elements of the dispositif of the nursery placement and its impact on each child’s experience. Methods associated with multi-sited ethnography were employed. These included semi-structured interviews with associated professionals and family members and observation of practice in the Baby Room. In addition, content analysis of cultural objects, including guidance documents, artefacts and the architecture of the setting, allowed exploration of non-human actants. In analysis of data, situational analysis and the listening tool were utilised as complementary tools. Findings indicated that the discursive practices recommended in official practice advice varied within and across government documents. Ways of parenting and of practising early childhood education and care professionally were individualistic and situated, often resisting government promoted discourses. It was concluded that the Scottish Government tactic of provision of a funded place for ‘at risk’ Scottish toddlers was unlikely to be successful in achieving its totalising and individualising aims. The tactic allowed society to benefit at the expense of women. Low levels of investment and a focus on measurable outcomes impacted on the nature of service provision and pedagogical approach, with ‘normalcy’ valued over care and relational working. The study concluded by suggesting that the Scottish Government might consider investment in universal, more democratic ECEC provision and in the development of professional education to take account of EU conceptualisation of competence, thus avoiding the marginalisation of women.

This thesis investigates the approach taken by an early years setting to promote community cohesion. The provocation for the research focus derives from the author's growing unease over the perceived limitations of a target-driven culture currently pervading English schools. A case is made for the importance of schools' community cohesion work; presented here as a potential vehicle with which to broaden and extend the school experience beyond the narrow, individualistic confines imposed by accountability frameworks. A review of literature on schools' actions taken to promote community cohesion reveals that the majority of studies report on 'one-off' actions', weighted towards concerns around ethnicity, with limited high quality case studies conducted within the early years (Dyson and Gallannaugh 2008). To address this knowledge gap, a singular case study has been conducted on an inner city maintained nursery school and children's centre in England, with the aim of gaining insights into the nature of an 'embedded approach' to promoting community cohesion. Empirical data gathered within the case study has also been used to address the secondary, more philosophical question, around whether community cohesion work might-serve as a conduit through which to 'rehumanize' the educational arena. The setting was specifically chosen for its excellent reputation in community relations. The qualitative case study has been conducted over a four month period, with a range of data gathering methods deployed to disaggregate their community cohesion work. These included; interviews, focus groups, observations within the classroom and family support sessions, photographic and documentary data. The six distinct themes which emerged from the codification process of the data analysis are demonstrated with supporting evidence. These data themes are linked to key theoretical arid conceptual constructs within the community cohesion and broader discourse; a process which identifies four interrelated principles on which the setting's community cohesion approach is based. The first of these community cohesion principles emphasizes the key relationship between critical self-examination and the quality of response towards others; a number of pragmatic measures illuminate how non-inclusive values and assumptions (which might militate against community cohesion) are supportively and sensitively challenged. The second principle is based on the setting's affordance as a 'protective site' or 'community haven' with secure local knowledge and community responsive relationships offering scope for members to build 'attachments' to the inclusive site, leading ultimately to a sense of belonging, important for cohesive living. The third principle represents the importance of taking practical measures to disrupt parallel living or social segregation. The robust commitment to bridge social distances between disparate groups is spearheaded by the setting's pragmatic measures to 'move closer' to the community they serve. The dynamic efforts to 'connect' with their families and community are rooted in an appreciation and endorsement of the equal value of all cultural capitals; an inclusive worldview which presents as a valuable role model or social template for the multi-ethnic population served by the setting. The final principle represents the importance of recognising and affirming the identities of all community members. Efforts made by the setting to promote inter-cultural understanding and a positive attitude to difference are found to contribute to the egalitarian, community centric model of identity formation within the setting, deemed conducive to cohesive living. Two conclusions are drawn. The first conclusion effectively presents as a distillation of the setting's approach to community cohesion. To this end, the analogy of a diamond is drawn on to encapsulate the essence of their approach and to highlight the significant value of the locally orchestrated· community cohesion work. The second conclusion provides an affirmative response to the secondary research question related to whether the setting's community cohesion work can help to rehumanize the educational arena. This definitive answer is predicated on the evidence . of the central importance placed on human relationships within the setting.

Philosophical, theoretical and scientific interest in early childhood has a very long history. The idea that the early years are the foundation of children's long term prospects is one of the most ancient, enduring and influencing themes shaping early childhood policy and provision today. The motivation and purpose for this study stems from a desire to de-familiarise that which is already known in order to reflect upon, and identify new understandings of early childhood education in relation to universal values and beliefs concerning young children's learning and development. Using an interpretative paradigm, which Habermas (1984, p.109) would describe as a "double hermeneutic" as the process involves striving to re- interpret the already interpreted world, I argue that the principles, practices and provision of early childhood education in the United Kingdom today have strong roots in the innovative pedagogies of four influential women of the 19th and 20th century: Margaret and Rachel McMillan, Maria Montessori and Susan Isaacs. This study adopts a historical stance and firstly examines how early childhood education began through exploring and reflecting upon the early philosophers of the past whose ideas, values and beliefs were influential in shaping the key women pioneers' thinking. The study then moves on to examines the roots and legacies of the four women and the contribution they each made to early childhood education today. The contribution of my thesis to current knowledge and understanding of early childhood education lies firstly in the way I have synthesised the lives and work of the four women who form the focus of this thesis and secondly, in my demonstration of the way much of what constitutes effective early childhood provision has been shaped through the course of history.

The studies were undertaken in seven Nursery Schools in order to give emphasis to the value of observational methods of enquiry in work with young children. Three techniques were adopted adhering to the following principles. 1) suitability for use by practising teachers. 2) inviolability of school settings and programmes. The whole is prefaced by a short account of the development of observational techniques over the last century. The First Study is a psychological ecology of the total indoor play space of each Nursery School, using recording schedules to highlight the population densities of the designated areas, their mobility patterns and qualities of elicited behaviours. The Second Study records, with the use of machines, the verbal behavioural responses of the children against the continuing background of uninterrupted play with manipulation of the variable of teacher presence. The third study of teachers' descriptions of the children's behaviours using a standardised multiple choice technique. While each study had its own particular structure, it was hypothesised that each would be complementary to the others. Conducted entirely in the schools, with teacher co-operation, the data was later processed by simple count and by computer. The quality of data from each study dictated the choice of statistical technique. The ecology study revealed the characteristics of the play areas in respect of population density, mobility and qualities of behaviour with reference to sex and age differences. Adult presence was thought to be a most powerful determining influence on children's choice of play area, superceding area density and quality of equipment. Within the second study the manipulation of this variable showed the adult drawing children’s verbal response towards herself in a didactic setting with some emphasis on the age factor. She favoured teaching method was Socratic and verbal control was through suggestion rather than request. Ratings of behaviours corresponded favourably with the hypothesised distribution, socio-economic factors playing no part in the judgment of behaviour or quality of home and school integration. Items from the three studies revealed high correlation within each and correlation between children's ways of expressing personal feeling through speech. The educational implications underlying the three studies pointed to the need for wider and more predictive assessment procedures, new ways to promote more intensive interaction between children and adults together with some imaginative departures from the traditional programme. The schools, though happy, positive places, did not appear to be structuring programmes likely to utilise the dynamic forces of human growth and development in the early years.

This thesis tells the story of an infant head teacher researcher's journey into the heart of a living educational assessment landscape. She embarks on this journey to search for a fairer assessment of young children's learning, development and attainment. It is a journey that forces her to question everything about the professional world in which she works and lives. The story is intended to use and evoke the human senses within the context of a real infant school (for children aged 3-7 years) - seeing, touching, hearing, and listening. It provides the vehicle to experience and gain an Insight into an evolutionary and exploratory journey of people working and learning together as they reflect on the creative, emotional, social, moral and sensual feelings of practice. In particular, it offers insights into the professional identity of the writer as she critically examines the impact of educational assessment on a school community and the people working in it. The research methodology is adapted from critical action research in which the researcher's educational values are the yardstick against which the tacit knowledge of action (practice) is evaluated. Professional stories of past practice are used to represent implicit theories that are collaboratively reflected upon as they are deconstructed and explored. The creative research process is uniquely represented by the visual metaphor of a multi-layered jigsaw puzzle that enables the researcher to uncover successive, significant layers of professional knowledge in the infant school that relate to the concept of a fairer assessment of children's learning, development and attainment. The educational assessment landscape or 'sensescape' is traversed in order to make sense of the conceptual model of a fairer assessment of children's learning, developnient and attainment as a living educational theory. The research offers an original contribution to educational knowledge in that it clarifies meanings of the researcher's ontological value of a fairer assessment of children's learning, development and attainment and transforms that value into a living epistemological standard of critical judgement.

Early childhood education has recently been recognised in the political and educational agenda in England. This has been demonstrated by the introduction of the Foundation Stage as a distinct stage of education. The Foundation Stage was implemented in schools in 2000 and became a statutory stage of the National Curriculum for England in 2002. This research study has explored practitioners' perspectives on good practice in the Foundation Stage and what impacts on it. It has sought the views of those who work directly with children in order to get a deeper understanding of their practice. Methodologically, an inductive approach was adopted by the use of grounded theory and in-depth interviewing. Using theoretical sampling, in-depth interviews with twenty-one practitioners (twelve teachers and nine nursery nurses) were undertaken, transcribed and analysed. The analysis of the data was facilitated by the use of NUD*IST (Non-numerical Unstructured Data: Indexing, Searching and Theorising) software. Six major features of good practice in the Foundation Stage emerged from the data: integrated, play-based and child-centred curriculum that places emphasis on personal, social and emotional development, effective early childhood environment, good interpersonal relationships between all parties, qualified specialised staff, ongoing observation and assessment of children, and evaluation of staff. Six main factors were revealed to be important in enhancing/supporting good practice in the Foundation Stage: training, resources, positive government intervention, parents' cooperation, practitioners' feelings towards the job, and practitioners' personal qualities. Moreover, it was found that practitioners face the following difficulties in their work: workload and time constraints, lack of resources, negative government intervention, children with English as an additional language, social deprivation and poverty, the low status of early childhood education and the situation of nursery nurses. In the light of the research findings, it is recommended that further steps should be taken to promote the status of early childhood education and its practitioners and that further research should be undertaken into the Foundation Stage. It is also suggested that the difficulties faced by practitioners should be addressed in order to improve educational practice in the early childhood provision and help practitioners effectively support and promote children's learning and development. In this respect it would be particularly important to involve practitioners in order to give them ownership of the process.

The purpose of this study was to discuss the interconnection between the knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and practices of early childhood teachers and trainees during the classroom practice of teachers and preparation of student teachers. The aim of this study was therefore to increase our understanding of how knowledge, beliefs and attitudes of the participants intersect to inform their teaching practices, and to draw some conclusions that could be used to further development of early years teachers. The notable feature is that this study is a comparative one. The researcher chose two countries where early childhood education and its teacher training programmes were being implemented, although in different ways. England and Kuwait are two contrasting countries from different global regions and having different religious and cultural contexts. The study also explored how far the English experience has potential to inform the development and improvement of Kuwaiti early childhood teacher education and training programme. This issue was examined in detail in different teacher training institutes located in England and Kuwait. To study such highly complex processes a multi-method approach was utilized by using a naturalistic or interpretative methodology. The researcher used Bereday’s comparative methodology to investigate the juxtaposition of these two early years education systems and teacher training programmes. To achieve the research objectives, a qualitative approach along with documentary analysis was employed. All semi-structured interviews were taped and transcribed. The data were coded and recorded several times using the comparative process. The evidence presented in the results supports the arguments that teachers' knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes do underpin their classroom practice and that there are factors that constrain or support teachers in their efforts to teach according to their knowledge and beliefs about learning and teaching. The data analysis in both countries revealed some similarities and differences, which exist between teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and classroom practice with regard to early years teacher education and training. The research revealed that trainee teachers’ knowledge, belief and attitude were closely linked, although their knowledge developed as a result of their learning, but beliefs they brought remain stable. Based on the analysis of the findings, this research theorizes that early years education and its teacher education are developed when teachers and trainees are provided with pedagogical content knowledge, and beliefs to improve the capabilities of early years teachers, and opportunities to interpret pedagogical knowledge, beliefs and attitudes into classroom practices to make the most of their capabilities. The findings revealed that teachers’ and trainee teachers’ knowledge, beliefs and attitudes are interlinked. Although trainee teachers’ knowledge developed as a result of their learning, some of their beliefs about Early Childhood Education (ECE) in general seemed to remain stable over the period of their university course. The findings showed that trainee teachers’ built their teaching identities on the wider social-cultural purposes of education in English and Kuwaiti societies, which reflected expectations of their roles in society. The study also identified other important differences as between the two early childhood education approaches and teacher training systems, namely in terms of: the governmental vision, educational policies, institutional provision, teacher training curricula, traditional disparities and theoretical reinforcement. In summary, this thesis examined the role of early childhood teachers’ knowledge, beliefs and attitudes about learning/teaching process and the relationship to classroom practice. It critically explored the impact that a range of factors have on teachers’ ability to implement practice that was consistent with their stated beliefs. This research also revealed how questionable it can be to merely state what the similarities and differences really are between two early childhood teacher education systems. However, various constraints related to the university context, to the nursery/kindergarten context and to the social-cultural context influenced their preparation as teacher, especially in State of Kuwait.