Quality, teaching and assessment in early childhood are often steeped in developmental logic and narrow understandings of teaching and learning. Pedagogy situated in agency and complexity disrupts these taken-for-granted narratives and offers multiple ways of teaching, learning and doing. In this article, the authors offer an example of these…

Montessori learning environments, described as prepared environment, allow children to choose their work freely and construct their own learning. Because the child is in the center and the roles of the teacher differ from the roles of the teachers in traditional schools, the direction of the communication and collaboration between the child and…

Drawing on data from a preschool-based ethnography that examined both teachers and children, this paper explores gendered elements of adult--child interactions in the preschool classroom. The author describes a methodological approach that acknowledges the provision of helpfulness as a common, everyday expectation that the children had of their…

Research on the predictivity of activity settings, preschool teachers' activities, and children's activities for interaction quality is inconsistent and cannot be transferred easily to specific national preschool contexts. The present study addresses this issue by assessing the interaction quality of 185 children aged 3-5 years attending 61…

In computer gaming situations in kindergartens, the pre-school teacher's function can be viewed in a continuum. At one extreme is the teacher who takes an intervening role and at the other extreme is the teacher who chooses to restrict herself/himself to an organising or distal role. This study shows that both the intervening position and the…

Western investigators assume that caregiver sensitivity takes similar forms and has similar outcomes in all cultures. However, cultural research suggests that sensitivity in the West has more to do with responsiveness to children's explicit expression of need, and that sensitivity in non-Western communities has more to do with anticipation of…

Describes the experience of a preschool teacher who allowed her students to create curriculum with her by sharing observations of natural phenomena and the learning process. Considers the importance of preparing the environment so that children feel they have ownership of the classroom and the materials, the role of both teacher and children as…

A microanalysis of social interaction in a preschool classroom revealed ways in which children and teachers "co-constructed" the rudiments of school culture during the first three days of school. Findings are based on videotapes, teachers' notes, and daily field notes taken by a group of observers. The three domains of the establishment…

Applied Learning projects are ventures whereby students connect school work to the real world and direct their own learning. This book describes how to use Applied Learning projects with students in kindergarten through second grade. Chapter 1 of the book describes the characteristics of Applied Learning projects and discusses the place of…