Putting the Teacher in the Picture: Perspectives From Early Childhood Education in Japan, Sweden, Finland, and Brooklyn

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

The symposium suggests that early childhood education and care, in part through its ability to develop and amplify not only young children’s but also teachers’ voices through adult-child joint play, may have a vital role in responding to the “learnification” (Biesta, 2010) of education. We will focus on a specific form of adult-child joint play called playworlds. In this play adults do not direct children's play towards adult-determined developmental goals nor do they watch children’s play from outside, but instead adults actively enter into the fantasy play of young children as a means of promoting the development of both adults and children. The symposium discusses playworlds in four different educational systems: in Sweden, Finland, Japan and the United States.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Critical Perspectives on Early Childhood Education

Chair

• Anna Pauliina Rainio, University of Helsinki

Papers

• Developing the Relational Competence of Early Childhood Education Teachers Through Playworlds: Contributions From a Swedish Preschool - Beth Ferholt, Brooklyn College - CUNY; Monica Nilsson, Jönköping University; Robert Lecusay, Jönköping University

• How Artists and Teachers Are in the Classroom With Children: In a Case of a Japanese Preschool - Kiyotaka Miyazaki, Waseda University

• Adult-Child Joint Play in Turmoil: Can Play Overcome the Challenges of Performativity in Finnish Early Childhood Education and Care? - Maiju Paananen, University of Helsinki; Anna Pauliina Rainio, University of Helsinki

Discussant

• Sonja Baumer, University of California - Berkeley