D.Ed. (Educational Psychology) / The aim of this study was to give an ethnographic story of the first Grade R programme in a developing school in 2010 in a black urban community and to use my story of the Grade R teaching and learning to contribute to a better understanding of the field of Early Childhood Development (ECD) and education in South Africa. This research was a response to the Department of Education’s concern that the Foundation Phase, Grade R included, does not receive the attention it deserves in South Africa. There appears to be alternative views and perspectives of what constitutes good ECD or Grade R practice. As a result, the conceptualisation of Grade R and ECD as a whole is problematic and inconsistent. This study is situated in the interpretivist naturalistic paradigm using sociocultural theory as theoretical framework. I studied the participants in a naturally occurring setting using methods of data collection which captured their social meanings and ordinary activities, whilst I participated directly in the setting in order to collect data in a systemic manner. Thutong1 a primary school established in 2010 in a black urban community, was the research site. Two Grade R classrooms were studied, comprising 60 children and two teachers. The classes were divided according to the children’s home languages, Sesotho (South Sotho) and isiZulu. The lens through which I observed the teaching and learning of the Grade R at Thutong had a sociocultural focus. Data was collected by means of participant-observation; interviews; photographs and photographic data; and artefacts. I used Brewer’s steps of analysis but they were not necessarily followed to the letter. As social phenomena were recorded and classified I compared the different data sets across categories. Atlas.ti computer software was used for qualitative data analysis and text management. Findings suggested that the Grade R language maze is central to teaching and learning of Grade R children, and this became an overarching theme. The sub-themes that were arrived at include language code switching, translation, dual medium in multilingual context, sound/letter recognition, numeracy teaching, Thutong teachers as griots, rhymes and Grade R learning, rote learning in language and numeracy, play in language acquisition, and barriers to learning and support. The diverse population of the black urban community in which the school is situated cautions stakeholders to plan carefully Grade R. In line with the sociocultural theory, a proposal for reform in Thutong would have to consider economic, political, historical, social, and cultural factors because the school is a part of and reflects the larger social system in which it is situated. The story reflects an urgent need to strengthen Early Childhood Development and education in South Africa, thus this study also addresses the need to support and promote local perspectives, questions and issues in order to move beyond the singular image of the global child. The study highlights the importance of teacher training, intense support to teachers and children by the Department of Education, children’s readiness to learn and parental involvement in language acquisition and development.

This study focused on preservice teachers at early childhood and elementary levels to identify prior beliefs they bring to their mathematics methods classes, how these beliefs affect their understandings about mathematics teaching and learning, and how these beliefs are reconstructed while engaged in a contructivist designed mathematics methods course. Data collected included in-depth student journal entries, personal histories of preservice teachers' prior mathematics experiences, and small group interviews. An interpretive analysis of the data identified emergent themes related to preservice teachers' beliefs about themselves as learners and teachers of mathematics and how these beliefs were reconstructed during the course. Five major themes were identified: preservice teachers prior beliefs and experiences; increased understandings about themselves as learners of mathematics; new learning about mathematical pedagogy; new or different ways of learning mathematics; and anger about their previous mathematics experiences.

Children playing on playgrounds is a common sight, one most people have witnessed and participated in. While playground spaces are scattered throughout the United States as places for children to explore, they often reflect adult notions of childhood and come in standardized forms, which often neglect the interests of children. Situated at the nexus of critical childhoods and spatial theories, this study argues that children’s playground spaces are valuable sites of study, as are the experiences of children utilizing them. While easy to ignore the desires of very young children, or brush them off as unimportant or uninformed, this study emphasizes the value of seeing, hearing, and prioritizing the experiences of two-year old’s as they navigate playground spaces. Utilizing researcher and child-driven methods, children’s verbal and nonverbal modes of communication were valued and reflected in the findings. Children’s movements through playground spaces were reflective of their sensory and embodied ways of being, as well as their connection with the material world. This work proposes that more attention be paid to children’s actual lived experiences in playground spaces and that this be considered when designing and constructing these spaces.

Discursive power relations that enclose the field of early childhood have functioned to construct the idea of the “normal” child, a process of silencing that limits spaces of “being” for children in classrooms. Relatedly, constructions of the “good” early childhood teacher are shaped by dominant discourses of child development that define “best” and “appropriate” practices in accordance with children’s developmental “needs.” In this study, I take up feminist poststructural theories in self-reflexive examination of my teaching practice with toddlers to allow for alternate ways of seeing the “child,” and therefore, the “teacher.” In laying bare the child and teacher as discursively constructed, complexities of classroom subjects become visible and possibilities for new ways of doing “teacher” emerge when we work to destabilize the hegemonic “truths” of the field. Using feminist poststructural theories to shape a narrative teacher research methodology, this study employs ethnographic and narrative methods in self-reflexive analysis of my own teaching practice. Working with data produced during one semester in the classroom, I interrogate my daily practices and understandings of “toddler,” teaching, learning, development, and research in order to displace dominant ways of understanding “toddler” and “toddler teacher.” The possibilities for teaching toddlers have been constrained by intersecting discourses of development, readiness, neoliberalism, and gender as development and progress are prioritized while the widespread assumption that early childhood is “women’s work” (Grumet, 1988) shapes the roles and statuses of teachers who work with our youngest children. The discoveries and new knowledges I have constructed through this work have exposed, challenged, and reimagined positionings of the teacher. From the gendered “care” work assumed to come naturally to women, to the technical practice based on a foundation of developmental knowledge, to the policing of children in classrooms, this study offers examinations of relations of power that may enable teachers and children to position themselves differently in classrooms, within and beyond existing discourses.

With the continued expansion in access to touchscreen devices, the question of whether such interactions are beneficial to the preschool user is increasingly important. Touchscreens allow for contingent responses from the viewer, a feature that is now utilized by the new modality of interactive television. This dissertation study investigates whether the addition of full interactivity to an educational cartoon facilitates narrative comprehension and learning of STEM-based curriculum. Forty-seven 4- to 5- year-olds watched a researcher-developed cartoon about two characters who were learning about the concept of rotation in outer space. Same-gender and age matched pairs individually watched the cartoon and were assessed on measures of narrative comprehension and, after a two-week delay, on a measure of rotation knowledge learning. Participants in the active condition watched the cartoon with the ability to make 5 character decisions at different points throughout the video. Those children in the passive condition saw the same path determined by their active pair, without any choice points. Results indicated that learning, as demonstrated on transfer items, was enhanced by the addition of choice, albeit no immediate gains in story understanding. The implications for interactive cartoons targeted to the age range in the context of differential access to family resources are discussed.

Across two experiments I sought to determine the relation between the Imitation developmental cusp and the emulative echoic cusp in preschoolers classified with a learning disability. In Experiment I, the participants were 36 preschoolers selected via a convenience sample, where the goal was to test for relations between the preverbal developmental cusp and foundational learning capability of Imitation, the preverbal and emulative verbal developmental cusps in the participant’s repertoire, and the reinforcement value of age-appropriate toys and activities. Results showed significant correlations between Imitation and conditioned reinforcement for observing adult faces and voices, parroting, echoics, and listener literacy, as well as significant relations between Imitation and conditioned reinforcement for playing with toys, puzzles, coloring materials, and Play-Doh. Findings show that Imitation is either a prerequisite or a corequisite to emulative verbal developmental cusps. Experiment II had two goals. The first was to determine whether educationally classified preschoolers with a disability can emit various imitative responses when the researcher presents instruction through a smart device using the mirror training protocol. The second was to determine whether the echoic behavior and observing responses of the participants would change as a result of undergoing the synchronous mirror training protocol. Results show a functional relation between the acquisition of the verbal foundational Imitation cusp and increases in emission of various imitative responses and emulative echoic responses, across both in-person and virtual conditions.

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