In 2006 The Children’s Workforce Development Council introduced the Early Years Professional (EYP) as a new a graduate level leader of practice and change agent. The EYP was tasked with improving quality in early childhood education and care (ECEC) in England, particularly in the private voluntary and independent (PVI) sector. Professional status was a new phenomenon in this sector and a narrative approach was taken in this study to explore, the experiences and perspectives of four experienced practitioners as they undertook a programme of training and education to become EYPs. Narrative in this study has informed the collection, interpretation and presentation of the data. The first layer of analysis presents the data as monologues which privilege the voices of the participants before the data is deconstructed for two subsequent layers of analysis. The second layer of analysis draws on the work of Bourdieu to explain how feminine stereotypes of care have shaped the participants’ experiences of professionalisation. This thesis argues that professionalisation does not entirely overcome primary conditioning but can increase access to cultural and economic capital and help the workforce resist exploitation. The data are considered in relation to contemporary debates, particularly those concerning performativity and the professional mandate. It is argued that performativity can threaten practice that is built on an ethic of care, leading to ontological insecurity. This thesis posits that the ontological insecurity, associated with EYPS, tends to be transitory and is outweighed by the value, status and access to resources that being a professional brings to the participants. It also argues that the professional mandate is found to be, at best, fragile and, at worst, rejected by significant stakeholders, thus threatening professionalisation of the sector. The final layer of analysis draws on the multiframe model of Bolman and Deal which offers insight into how organisational structures and practices shape participants’ experiences of becoming an EYP and their ability to lead practice, and bring about change. The findings suggest that the role of the professional in ECEC challenges traditional hierarchical organisational structures and the professional is often ill prepared for leadership. Drawing on this multiframe analysis the study synthesises an adapted Change Curve Model with the multiframe model to generate an integrated model of leadership which the practice leader can draw upon to identify the stages of change, and the actions which can be employed at each stage. This model extends knowledge of leadership in ECEC and underpins practice leadership in a sector which is increasingly framed by the raising standards policy context and increased accountability.

This study investigates the current status of integration and implementation of ICT practice in Jordanian kindergartens, stakeholders' understanding of policy recommendations for ICT integration, obstructions to the implementation of ICT practices in ECE, and the types of ICT practices used in ECE and their effects on children's development.

This thesis investigates the experiences of Children’s Centre leaders of the National Professional Qualification in Integrated Centre Leadership (NPQICL) who find themselves in a newly developed role and lacking a professional identity. Its aim is to explore the developing professional identities of NPQICL participants from their own perspectives, focusing on ways in which their professional identities are developing and how, correspondingly, these might be better supported on the NPQICL. Clarification of core ideas embedded in these aims theoretically and conceptually reveals that professions are publicly shaped in line with established traditions, and therefore often prescribed. Processes of professional development are correspondingly seen as largely publicly organised processes of professional learning and/or acculturation. However, a key area for research is the interface between publicly shaped expectations of those learning to be professionals and the particular needs and expectations of course participants themselves especially with regard to how they see themselves as Children’s Centre leaders. Because this area is fluid, uncertain and shaped partly by professionals themselves it is hard to investigate. A flexible Adaptive Theory research design is selected along with an array of conceptual tools (orienting concepts and a conceptual cluster) which can be modified, discarded or replaced according to the demands of data collected. Using a relatively open-ended data collection device also allows a wide range of potentially revealing data to be ‘storied’ for analysis in order to preserve their individualised nature. Although a process of subjective self-conceptualisation in role can be used to explain how NPQICL participants adapt to expectations from the wider professional community and social context, there is a need to explain how public influences and individual co-constructions of professional identity shaped by professionals themselves are synthesised in individual responses to fluid, uncertain professional identities. The research aims are met by modelling the process of developing a professional identity on the NPQICL as an ‘autobiography’. This conceptual device brings together public and individual influences into a synthesis and allows insight into the experiences of individuals. It explains some of the success of the NPQICL course and some of its dynamics including how the development of Children’s Centre leaders’ identities can be supported in a professional learning programme.

The aim of my DPhil is to identify educational practices predictive of students' self-regulation development during early childhood. Specifically, I will analyze the Tools of the Mind preschool curriculum (Tools), which emphasizes students' self-regulation cultivation as its paramount aim. Since its development in 1993, Tools has spread to schools in the United States, Canada, and South America. In the face of Tools' proliferation, two questions emerge: does Tools significantly improve children's self-regulation skills? And, if so, then which of its effective elements could be applied across various educational contexts? This dissertation contains two studies. In the first, I will systematically review extant Tools research and then execute a multilevel meta-analysis of the quantitative results. Study one serves three purposes: 1) to identify all studies in the existing Tools evidence base, 2) to estimate an aggregate curricular effect, and 3) to determine how that effect varies across contexts and student characteristics. Thus, study one will assess whether Tools, at the curricular level, improves students' self-regulation. By contrast, study two will involve more granular analyses of the discrete learning activities that collectively comprise Tools. Specifically, study two will analyze child-level self-regulation and teacher-level Tools implementation data for 1145 preschool children in 80 classrooms across six American school districts. I will employ multilevel structural equation models to assess which Tools activities are associated with students' self-regulation growth, which are associated with decline, and which exhibit no association at all. Ultimately, this dissertation features the first Tools meta-analysis as well as the first analysis of specific Tools instructional activities. It is hoped that these analyses will identify educational practices predictive of self-regulation development both within and beyond the Tools curricular context.

This research project investigates the lived experience of professional identity of five Early Years Teachers, formerly Early Years Professionals (EYPs), working in a variety of early years settings in England. Early Years Teacher Status is a government-funded, standards-based graduate status for the birth to five sector, which replaced Early Years Professional Status (EYPS) in 2013. All EYPs are now entitled to call themselves Early Years Teachers. Both are part of a continued drive to professionalise the early years workforce, raise outcomes for children from birth to five and ensure children are ready for school. Concerns have been raised in the sector about the parity of pay, working conditions and status of Early Years Teachers when compared to those with Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). The research study uses an in-depth phenomenological approach and an innovative data gathering method, Learning Walks, to investigate how five EYPs, rebranded as Early Years Teachers, have made meaning of their new identity while working in a variety of early years settings: a pre-school, children's centre, home child-minding setting, Higher Education and nursery. Issues of identity, pedagogical leadership, power, agency and status are examined through the perspectives of the participants using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The findings emphasise the unique experiences of these Early Years Teachers, which are contextual to their workplace and influenced by personal experience and belief systems. Their confidence in a multi-disciplinary pedagogical approach is very visible, embedded within their previous identity as an EYP. However, the study underlines some of the tensions, issues and challenges which come from an imposed shift of professional identity from EYP to teacher, without the same pay and working conditions as QTS, and situated within a traditionally complex and marginalised workforce beset by notions of hierarchy and status. It provides new insight into the reality of such an abrupt, imposed and regulated identity change within a shifting policy field, which is reconceptualising early years education and care as preparation for school.

A child's early academic learning experiences take place at home as well as at school. These two ‘overlapping spheres' have unique roles to play for the child, and affect them in different ways. In this thesis, I focus on the child's home life, and mother-child interactions nested within the home, and investigate how individual and dyadic characteristics of child and of mother may have a bearing on the quality of children's academic and non-academic learning experiences at home, and on their experience of school. The first three papers used data from eighty-five families of Year 1 children in South-East England. This data was collected using questionnaire and interview measures and videotaped observations of mother-child interactions during home visits. Paper 1 explores personal and social factors in Year 1 children relating to their self-reported school adjustment. Results from interviews showed that family and home life were important for academic self-concept, but not for school engagement, further reinforcing existing research showing that each distinct environment within the child's microsystem affects their experience of the other. Paper 2 focused on homework: an area of children's formal education outside school. Most homework interaction research uses researcher-set activities; my study tested the validity of this by comparing genuine homework and a researcher-set task. In observations of 85 families of year 1 children, mother's and child's affect during genuine homework did not correlate with their affect during the non-homework tutored task, and were related to different personal and social factors. Taking this further, Paper 3 investigated whether maternal beliefs about education predicted how she scaffolded her child during Year 2 homework. This paper used data from eighty of the families, visited a year after the original visit. Results showed that instruction quality during homework was predicted by mothers' earlier learning attribution beliefs, but not by their attitudes or expectations. Homework is believed to help children refine their self-regulation skills. Paper 4 examined maternal scaffolding interactions through the conceptual lens of ‘transfer of regulation'. Using a different dataset of home visits with seventy-eight families of children aged 8-11, the fine-grained coding method sheds light on aspects of tutored interactions typically missed by traditional scaffolding coding schemes, identifying various aspects of self-regulation and other-regulation, and mapping increases and decreases over the course of the task, thus providing rich information about the interaction quality within each mother-child dyad. In conclusion, both social (transfer of regulation: Paper 4; parenting styles, mother-child relationship: Paper 1) and individual (maternal beliefs and personality: Papers 2 and 3) factors within the home context play a role in the child's learning and school experience – as assessed by academic self-concept, self-regulation, and the positivity and cognitive support received during homework. This thesis further reveals the interlaced nature of home and school, highlighting the value of unpacking the role of the home environment on children's education.

Thesis (M.Ed. (Language Education)) --University of Limpopo, 2013 / The research reported in this study firstly sought to examine the effects of First Language (L1) on sentence transformation among grade 12 learners studying English First Additional Language (EFAL). Secondly, it endeavoured to recommend possible measures that could be implemented to eliminate the consequences of such effects, since available research on errors, resulting from L1 interference, offers no feasible classroom solutions to this problem. The significance for this study rests in the sense that it pursued to provide a meaningful soluble contribution to the problem, taking into cognisance South Africa’s multilingual and multicultural realities. Thirdly, the study also attempted to ensure that the recommendations made, acknowledged the reality of the fact that a majority of South Africa’s EFAL teachers are themselves Second Language (L2) speakers. To achieve the above, the study employed the mixed method model of research design to answer the question ‘What are the effects of L1 interference on sentence transformation among grade 12 EFAL learners?’ The findings of this study revealed that learners, who participated in this study are exposed to various sources of language input. In addition, the results indicated that a majority of the learners listen to a predominantly Xitsonga language radio station. Thus, there is very little exposure to English L2 input from this media. With regards to television, however, most of the learners watch SABC 1 and in particular, Generations, a multilingual soapie (localism for soap opera) dominated by the use of Black South African English (BSAfE). On the issue of the effects of L1 on sentence transformation, the findings showed a number of levels at which sentence transformation is affected by L1. Given the findings of this study, the researcher strongly recommends that in order to relieve the problem underlying this study, the education system should consider responding to the call by authors in this field, that BSAfE be accepted as an institutionalised variety, which offers an innovative and unique identity to the South African linguistic context. Thus, the study is of practical importance to various sectors. It contributes invaluable information for curriculum developers and implementers. It also contributes vital knowledge for teacher training programmes.

In contemporary UK preschool, technological resources have become a standard feature of the environment. This has prompted widespread discussion around the appropriateness of technologies in preschools and for some time concerns were raised that technology is socially detrimental for children. These concerns have since been challenged as it has been argued that they are unsubstantiated and not evidence-based. Yet despite this realisation, few studies have been conducted about children’s social interaction around technologies in order to contribute to this debate. Furthermore, negative concerns have largely been attributed to the technological artefacts themselves and the cultural and wider preschool context is often overlooked. In the 1980s, research on the ecological preschool environment in relation to children’s social behaviours was widely available but similar studies situated in contemporary technology-rich preschool environments is limited. Thus, a body of literature to inform the technology debate in relation to social interaction is restricted. This study provides an empirical foundation to begin exploring 3 to 5 year old children’s social interactions in technology-rich local authority preschools by: identifying the observable child-child interactions as children engage with technology in preschools; exploring the preschool characteristics which may contribute to these interactions; and exploring the role that technologies play in contributing to these interactions. The study adopts an inclusive definition of technology and addresses a broad range of resources, providing a new perspective on the role of technologies in education and in relation to social interactions. These areas of interest were addressed using four qualitative methods: observation, activity mapping, researcher-led games with children and interviews with practitioners. Following the nine-month data collection phase and iterative thematic analysis, two key findings emerged from the data. Firstly, children’s social interactions during technological activities in preschool were complex and multifaceted with few discernible patterns emerging. Secondly, the wider preschool context made a large contribution to the contingent and divergent interactions observed, diluting claims that technological artefacts alone influence children’s social interactions.

Θα μπορούσε η μέτρηση του μήκους να αποτελέσει αντικείμενο διδασκαλίας στην προσχολική εκπαίδευση; Θα μπορούσαν τα παιδιά της προσχολικής ηλικίας με την κατάλληλη διδακτική παρέμβαση να αναπτύξουν ικανότητες μέτρησης του μήκους; Αυτά είναι τα ερωτήματα που διαπραγματεύεται η παρούσα έρευνα. Το δείγμα αποτέλεσαν 28 μαθητές προσχολικής ηλικίας από δύο δημόσια σχολεία της Πάτρας. Η διδακτική παρέμβαση περιλάμβανε δύο φάσεις. Πρώτον άμεσες συγκρίσεις με τη χρήση πρακτικών όπου το ένα μέγεθος καλύπτει ή τοποθετείται δίπλα στο άλλο και δεύτερον έμμεσες συγκρίσεις με τη χρήση εργαλείων που μεσολαβούν για τη διεξαγωγή της μέτρησης. Τα αποτελέσματα της έρευνάς μας έδειξαν ότι οι πρακτικές για τη μέτρηση του μήκους μπορούν να εισαχθούν στη διδασκαλία ακόμη και από την προσχολική εκπαίδευση. / Could measurement of length be the object of teaching in early education? Could appropriate teaching interventions develop as to scaffold children’s efforts to measure lengths? These are the central questions of this paper. The sample consisted of 28 children of two public preschool classrooms and the teaching intervention included two different kinds of tasks. Direct comparisons with the use of practices of one magnitude covering another or placing one next to the other and indirect comparisons by using tools that mediates in the measurement. The results of our research showed that practices for measuring length can be introduced into teaching as early as preschool education.

Interactive play in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) provides crucial opportunities for young children to develop a range of skills which are important for social development. Play Bank provides structured opportunities based on ‘Resilient Peer Treatment’ (Fantuzzo et al. 1996; 2005) for children to engage in peer-mediated play sessions, and has been found to increase the play interaction of shy and withdrawn preschool children in an initial small-scale study by the current author. This research seeks to extend the evidence base for Play Bank in UK schools by examining perceptions of change in young children’s peer interaction and social competence, as well as school staff’s views of the facilitators and barriers to carrying out the intervention. One primary school was identified within the researcher’s current Local Authority and five target children were identified on the basis of teacher observations and EYFS profile scores. The views of 18 peers, two teaching staff and five parents were sought. A multiple embedded case study design was employed, using mixed methods of data collection at three time intervals. The quantitative methods comprised teacher and parent measures of children’s play-based social competence, whole class sociometric nominations and structured observations of children’s free play. Qualitative data were gathered in a semi structured group interview with the two teaching staff. Quantitative data were summarised using descriptive statistics and qualitative data were transcribed and a thematic analysis applied. The findings indicated that children who participated in Play Bank sessions displayed increased peer interaction and play-based social competence over the course of time. The study extends understanding regarding implementation issues for Play Bank and provides further evidence for the effects of Play Bank on young children’s peer interaction and social competence.