Participation in practice (Theobald & Kultti, 2012)

Theobald, M., & Kultti, A. (2012). Investigating child participation in the everyday talk of a teacher. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 13 (3), 210–225.

In this paper, Maryanne Theobald and Anne Kultti are able to show us the practice of participation in early learning environments. Taking the Convention of the Rights of the Child as a starting point, this paper moves beyond considering participation as an ethical and policy imperative, and moves to show how participation can be facilitated by early childhood teachers. Specifically, the analysis shows how children’s ideas and solutions can be invited, respected and enacted in organisizing resources and processes for play. Tensions are also shown, however, in the institutional constraints of school timetable and curricula demands, where the teacher makes more directive solicitations of children’s experience and knowledge.