Interactions in Early Childhood Education ― Recent Research and Emergent Concepts

This book provides new insights into how interactions in early childhood education are being studied, and into what these studies’ findings mean for improving the quality of early childhood education. The editors examine the methods, ethics, practices, and questions arising from such close work with children, families and educators, and have brought together a collection that highlights interactions research and practical implications for early childhood education and research, with the ultimate aim of shaping quality practices.

Starting with an overview of interaction research and its pedagogical value in early childhood education the book subsequently introduces new interaction studies in early childhood from Europe and Australasia. Drawing from a range of perspectives and using different conceptual and methodological tools the contributors use their interactions research to comment collectively on process quality in early childhood education, and its relationship to the phenomenon of pedagogical interactions. The work as a whole bridges the gap between practice and research by addressing quality interactions for early learning (for practitioners) and providing researchers valuable information on methods for studying interactions within the everyday contexts of early childhood education.

Claudia A. Hruska is a Professor of Early Childhood Development and Education. She has fundamental expertise in quantitative educational research, (neuro-)psychological and more recently, qualitative research methods. Her work extends across the subject areas of learning, language, development, and quality in early childhood education. She was in the core team NUBBEK (National Study of education and care), which conducted a nation-wide study on quality in home environments and early childhood educational settings in Germany from 2007 to 2013. She recently joined the Leipzig Research Center for Early Child Development.

Alexandra C. Gunn is a Senior Lecturer and Associate Dean of Teacher Education at the University of Otago College of Education. Formerly an early childhood teacher who worked with children from birth to school age and their families in not-for-profit early childhood education, Alex now researches, writes and teaches in initial teacher education and general education. Her interests include various aspects of inclusion, assessment, gender/sexualities, social justice, and teachers’ beliefs and practices. She co-edited Sexual Cultures in Aotearoa/New Zealand Education (2015) with the Otago University Press and Te Aoturoa Tataki – Inclusive Early Childhood Education: Perspectives on social justice and equity from Aotearoa New Zealand (NZCER Press, 2012).