16.042 - Making Embodied and Material Early Childhood Education Practices Visible

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

The papers in this session combine the use of video as a research tool with a range of theories of embodiment and materiality to analyze the linkages of bodies, things, children and teachers in early childhood education settings. The session will feature the presentation of video clips shot in early childhood classrooms combined with analyses based on a range of “post-human” theoretical approaches to conceptualizing materiality and embodiment in ways that open up new possibilities for reconceptualizing the agency, intentionality, and everyday praxis of children and teachers. The presenters draw on Latour’s Actor Network Theory, Deleuze and Guattari’s assemblage and rhizome, Haraway’s cyborgs, Goffman and Merleau-Ponty’s intercorporeality, Butler’s performativity, Foucault’s subjectification, and Bennett’s vibrant materiality.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Critical Perspectives on Early Childhood Education

Chair

• Joseph J. Tobin, University of Georgia

Papers

• The Adventures of Blocks and Others in a Pre-K Classroom - Su Yun Choi, University of Georgia - Athens

• Living Together: The Bodily Life of Preschools in China and the United States - Chang Liu, University of Georgia - Athens

• Making Embodied Practices Visible: The Impact of Video Assessment on Preservice Teachers - Bing Xiao, Austin Peay State University

• Exploring Early Childhood Robotics Education for Reconceptualizing and Practicing the Mind-Body-Material Connection - Kyung Hwa Lee, University of Georgia; Shara Cherniak, University of Georgia; Eunji Cho, University of Georgia - Athens; Sung Eun Jung, University of Arizona

Discussant

• Marek Tesar, The University of Auckland