Implementing Counterhegemonic Research Approaches to Evaluating High-Profile, National Policies in Early Childhood Education and Care

• In Event: Looking Back to Move Forward: Professional Dialogues for Change

Abstract

This paper reports on the counter-hegemonic research design applied to an evaluation of a national policy for the inclusion of children with disabilities in early childhood education and care (ECEC). It is relevant to policymakers, researchers, and practitioners who are engaged in developing the inclusiveness of ECEC, and/or who wish to enact research methods that affirm the expert status of both children and practitioners as ‘truth’ knowers. Using a feminist lens, it describes the importance of counter-hegemonic activism in a 'feminized' workforce and provides an account of how close-to-practice researchers were engaged in the implementation of a multimodal mapping method influenced by Deleuzo-Guattarian formulations of meaning and reality. The method was used to elicit children's lived experiences of inclusion.

Authors

• Deborah Robinson, University of Derby
  Presenting Author

• Geraldene Codina, University of Derby
  Presenting Author

• Marco Antonio Delgado-Fuentes
  Presenting Author

• Rosemary Shepherd
  Presenting Author