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ERIC Number: EJ1437839
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0966-9760
EISSN: EISSN-1469-8463
DAP Discourses: Hubris, Hegemony, or Heuristic for Teacher Education?
Rebecca S. New
International Journal of Early Years Education, v32 n3 p547-564 2024
This essay entails a critical review of the origins, discourses and contemporary manifestations of NAEYC's enduring commitment to 'developmentally appropriate practice' (DAP); and proposes a reconceptualisation of DAP as an open question and incentive for place-based collaborative inquiry. Brief discussion of ECE's early history highlights transnational feminist exchanges, charitable activism, competing interpretations of early childhood programme goals and pedagogies; and a mutually-beneficial relationship between two emerging fields -- child development research and ECE as a scientifically-based profession. Decades of child development research are described in relation to evolving iterations of "DAP Guidelines" (1987). Discourse analysis posits DAP as a weapon against push-down academics, and a hubristic code signifying professional sanction and membership. Challenges to DAP hegemony include research on the cultural embeddedness of developmental standards and examples of collaborative place-based inquiry into 'appropriate' ways to care for and educate young children. The essay concludes by proposing DAP as a dynamic heuristic in the reform of ECE teacher education as a profession committed to multiple sources of knowledge and equity-focused social action on behalf of actual and imagined childhoods.
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Early Childhood Education; Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A