Making a Stink About the “Ideal” Classroom: Conflict in Early Childhood Education

• In Event: Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: Issues in Early Education and Child Development

Abstract

Focusing on conflicts as opportunities for learning authentically, in this paper, I draw on an ethnographic study in a Universal Pre-K class to illustrate how conflict that permeates early childhood classrooms has a functional appeal for transforming educational experiences, placing students’ interests front and center. In doing so, I engage in challenging the concept of the “ideal” early childhood classroom as being characterized by the absence of conflict. Throughout the paper, I aim to shed light onto transformative possibilities of conflict for teaching and learning in authentic, meaningful, and responsive ways.

Author

• Mariana Souto-Manning, Teachers College, Columbia University