Transforming Early Childhood in England

Transforming Early Childhood in England Transforming Early Childhood in England Towards a Democratic Education Edited by Claire Cameron and Peter Moss First published in 2020 by UCL Press University College London Gower Street London WC1E 6BT Available to download free: www.uclpress.co.uk Collection © Editors, 2020 Text © Contributors, 2020 Images © Contributors and copyright holders named in captions, 2020 The authors have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the authors of this work. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library. This book is published under a Creative Commons 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0). This licence allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work; to adapt the work and to make commercial use of the work providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information: Cameron, C. and Moss, P. (eds.). 2020. Transforming Early Childhood in England: Towards a Democratic Education. London: UCL Press. https://doi.org/10.14324/111. 9781787357167 Further details about Creative Commons licence are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Any third-party material in this book is published under the book’s Creative Commons licence unless indicated otherwise in the credit line to the material. If you would like to reuse any third-party material not covered by the book’s Creative Commons licence, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. ISBN: 978-1-78735-718-1 (Hbk.) ISBN: 978-1-78735-717-4 (Pbk.) ISBN: 978-1-78735-716-7 (PDF) ISBN: 978-1-78735-719-8 (epub) ISBN: 978-1-78735-720-4 (mobi) DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781787357167 Contents About the contributors vii List of figures and tables xiii List of abbreviations xiv Preface: The pandemic as a moment of decision xv 1 Introduction: The state we’re in 1 Peter Moss and Claire Cameron 2 Families living in hard times 19 Abigail Knight, Rebecca O’Connell and Julia Brannen 3 Child health and homelessness 34 Diana Margot Rosenthal and Monica Lakhanpaul 4 Towards a unified and unifying ECEC system from birth to 6 years 54 Peter Moss 5 Towards a ‘rich’ ECEC workforce 67 Claire Cameron 6 Towards a public ECEC system 83 Eva Lloyd 7 Towards a child-centred curriculum 100 Georgina Trevor, Amanda Ince and Lynn Ang 8 Towards valuing children’s signs of learning 119 Kate Cowan and Rosie Flewitt 9 Towards a listening ECEC system 134 Alison Clark v 10 Towards a democratic ECEC system 151 Diana Sousa 11 Towards a pluralist and participatory accountability 170 Guy Roberts-Holmes 12 Towards empowerment for food and eating in ECEC 188 Francesca Vaghi 13 Towards an ECEC system in synergy with parenting leave 203 Margaret O’Brien and Peter Moss 14 Conclusion: From ‘the state we’re in’ to ‘what do we want for our children?’ 220 Peter Moss and Claire Cameron Index 239 vi CONTENTS About the contributors Peter Moss is Emeritus Professor of Early Childhood Provision at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL Institute of Education. He co-founded the international network on leave policies and for 10 years co-edited the book series ‘Contesting Early Childhood’. Much of his work has been cross-national and his interests include early childhood education, democ- racy in education and the relationship between employment, care and gender. His most recent books are Alternative Narratives in Early Child- hood (Routledge, 2019) and Parental Leave and Beyond (edited with Alison Koslowski and Ann-Zofie Duvander, Policy Press, 2019). Claire Cameron is Professor of Social Pedagogy at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL Institute of Education. She has a long-standing record of research on children’s services, including studies of the early childhood care and education workforce. Publications include Men in the Nursery: Gender and caring work (with Charlie Owen and Peter Moss, Paul Chap- man Publishing, 1999), Care Work in Europe: Current understandings and future directions (with Peter Moss, Routledge, 2007), International Per- spectives in the Early Years (edited with Linda Miller, SAGE, 2014) and The SAGE Handbook of Early Childhood Policy (edited with Linda Miller, Car- men Dalli and Nancy Barbour, SAGE, 2018). Lynn Ang is Professor of Early Childhood in the Department of Learning and Leadership, UCL Institute of Education. She is an expert in early learning, early childhood and primary education, and international evidence-based research, particularly in developing countries. She has led and co-led many major research grants including a five-year study to assess the effectiveness, impact and sustainability of the World Bank Early Learning Partnership (ELP) (2018–22) and the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF)-funded project ‘Manor Park Talks’ (2018–20) to embed an evidence-based intervention programme of professional devel- opment to improve the outcomes for disadvantaged 2-year-olds accessing free early education entitlement in Manor Park, Newham, UK. vii Julia Brannen is Professor of Sociology of the Family at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL Institute of Education and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. She has an international and national rep- utation for research on the family lives of parents, children and young people and work–family issues in Britain and Europe, intergenerational relationships, and food in families and a particular interest in methodol- ogy including mixed methods, biographical approaches and comparative research. Her latest book is Social Research Matters (Bristol University Press, 2019). Alison Clark is Honorary Senior Research Fellow at UCL Institute of Education, University College London and Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway. She is an academic and an art- ist who developed the Mosaic approach – a visual, participatory research framework first published in 2001 and sinceadopted and adapted widely by practitioners and researchers. Her research interests include young children’s rights, early childhood environments and slow pedagogies. Recent research includes ‘Children’s Photographic Voices’, a collaboration between the University of South-Eastern Norway, local kindergartens and Preus, the National Museum of Photography in Horten, Norway. Kate Cowan is an education researcher interested in young children’s multimodal communication. Based at UCL Institute of Education, Uni- versity College London, her research interests include play, creativity, literacies and digital technologies. Her work also involves developing multimodal methodologies and considers the ethics of video-based research with young children. Recent research projects include ‘Playing the Archive’ (funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) and ‘Valuing Young Children’s Signs of Learning’ (funded by the Froebel Trust). Prior to joining UCL Institute of Education, Kate worked as a nursery teacher and she remains committed to connecting research and practice. Rosie Flewitt is Professor of Early Childhood Communication in the Education and Social Research Institute (ESRI), Manchester Metropolitan University, and former Co-Director of the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Pedagogy at UCL Institute of Education, University College London. She is an expert in young children’s multimodal meaning- making and in ethnographic research with young children, their parents and professional educators. Recent publications include the award-winning book Storytelling in Early Childhood: Enriching language, literacy and class- room culture (edited with Teresa Cremin, Ben Mardell and Joan Swann, viii ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS Routledge, 2017); the Routledge Handbook of Digital Literacies in Early Childhood (edited with Ola Erstad, Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer and Íris Susana Pires Pereira, 2019); and Research Methods for Early Childhood Education (with Lynn Ang, Bloomsbury, 2020), in the ‘National Centre for Research Methods’ book series. Amanda Ince is Programme Leader for MA Primary Education and MA Early Years Education at UCL Institute of Education, University College London and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She has a background as an early years teacher and works with early years profes- sionals on developing practice through action research and practitioner enquiry in settings across London and the south-east of England. Her research focuses on professional learning, leadership in early years and the use of cognitive dissonance as an educative resource. Her latest book is A Practical Guide to Action Research and Teacher Enquiry: Making a dif- ference in the early years (with Eleanor Kitto, Routledge, 2019). Abigail Knight is Honorary Senior Research Associate at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL Institute of Education and also an independ- ent social worker and researcher. She has over 20 years’ experience of carrying out qualitative research with children, young people and families experiencing challenging circumstances, such as poverty, inequal- ity and disability; her most recent role was leading the UK qualitative phase of a European Research Council-funded study ‘Families and Food in Hard Times’. She has published in journals such as Child and Family Social Work and the Journal of Poverty and Social Justice. Monica Lakhanpaul is Professor of Integrated Community Child Health at UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, University College London. She is UCL Pro-Vice-Provost

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