Early academics: Introduction to the debate

1991 ◽  
Vol 1991 (53) ◽  
pp. 5-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie Rescorla
Keyword(s):  
Early Academics

stagnation, and they used the carrot of the advantages of a single market to try to convince the sceptics. As the next chapter will show, the SEA foreshadowed virtually the entire contents of the later Maastricht Treaty on European Union, but ratification of the latter was much more difficult once the detail was spelled out. Any notion that Maastricht could somehow have been brought forward by five years is quite unreal. Whilst ratification by all members, including Portugal and Spain who joined the Community on 1 January 1986, was never in any real doubt, the Danish Parliament or Folketing actually rejected the Treaty – a decision overturned by a subsequent referendum. With the ratification of the SEA, Community developments become part of contemporary history. As our own perspectives shift, analysis of cause and effect becomes that much more difficult. In the period between the SEA and the Treaty on European Union, the major internal factor affecting the Community was the commitment to implement the single market. The way in which the idea of the single market captured public imagination is unrivalled by any other Community initiative since its beginning in the fifties. Some excitement was even generated by the notion of implementation by a particular year. Back in Chapter 2 reference was made to functionalism, and also to some of the early academics who wrote about the integration process. According to Ernst Haas, the functional approach to integration was all about the transfer of loyalties and expectations from the nation states to the new supra-national institutions. Some thirty years later, the single market initiative is almost a classic of functionalist strategy. In the immediate aftermath of the signature and ratification of the SEA, the major task was to bring about implementation of the single market by the end of 1992. The single market programme involved a vast amount of technical work leading to a plethora of legislative measures. This in turn brought the Commission back to centre stage perhaps for the first time since the crises of the mid 1960s. At the time of the Milan European Council, the Commission had presented a white paper on the implementation of a single market. With the signature of the new treaty, it fell to the Commission to draft some 300 legislative measures and to seek to steer them through the Council. This process was to mark the emergence of Delors as a major ‘player’ in the Community and as perhaps the most significant President of the Commission: certainly the first to become almost a ‘household name’. A major obstacle to implementation of the single market was posed by the economic gap between richer and poorer states. The southern or Mediterranean members argued that the commitment to cohesion enshrined in the SEA had

2006 ◽  
pp. 85-85
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
White Paper ◽  
Single Market ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Shift Analysis ◽  
Major Player ◽  
Community Initiative ◽  
Early Academics ◽  
Legislative Measures

The Pushes and Pulls of Pedagogy in the Early Years: Competing Knowledges and the Erosion of Play-based Learning

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 36-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lennie Barblett ◽  
Marianne Knaus ◽  
Caroline Barratt-Pugh
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Pedagogical Tool ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Pedagogical Issue ◽  
Early Academics ◽  
Quality Learning ◽  
Western Australian ◽  
Early Childhood Pedagogy

IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA, EARLY childhood educators have been asking whose agenda does early childhood knowledge serve and for what purpose? This has come to the forefront of debate as play as a pedagogical tool is disappearing from programs for four- and five-year-old children in favour of early academics through a pushdown curriculum. Such a trend was confirmed from research conducted with 200 Western Australian early years educators (mainly teachers) to discuss their most concerning early childhood pedagogical issue. This paper describes the educators' most significant concern, which was the erosion of play-based learning and the tension about the use of play as a legitimate pedagogical tool in early years programs. The analysis revealed competing knowledge about current moves in early childhood education. The knowledge shared by educators has implications for quality learning and teaching in the early years and impacts on children, educators, parents and schools, and in particular, early childhood pedagogy.

scholarly journals Most Chinese Preschool Teachers Value Guided Play Over Free Play: Latent Profiles and Associated Predictors

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xunyi Lin ◽  
Yutong Liao ◽  
Manli Xue ◽  
Yeshe Colliver
Keyword(s):  
Latent Profile Analysis ◽  
Longitudinal Research ◽  
Preschool Teachers ◽  
Profile Analysis ◽  
Teaching Experience ◽  
Free Play ◽  
Emotional Skills ◽  
Education And Care ◽  
Early Academics ◽  
Guided Play

Longitudinal research suggests that optimal long-term outcomes are achieved when early childhood education and care (ECEC) balance free with guided play. A prerequisite for this achievement is that ECEC teachers value both equally. This study examines preschool teachers’ play beliefs profile and explores its association with teachers’ backgrounds (e.g., teaching experience, education level) in a sample of 674 Chinese teachers in Fujian, China. Participants completed an adapted form of the Parent Play Belief Scale, the Chinese Teacher Play Beliefs Scale (CTPBS), to report their beliefs regarding young children’s play and early academics. Latent profile analysis (LPA) revealed 91% of teachers exhibited high Academics over Guided Play (AGP) and low Free Play and Socio-Emotional Skills Support (FPSSS), whereas only 9% were high in both factors. Teachers with a decade or more teaching experience were more likely to belong to the high AGP and low FPSES profile. The findings indicate that the majority of Chinese ECEC teachers value guiding play to academic skills more than they do facilitating free play for socio-emotional skills. Professional development focused on balancing guided with free play may be necessary for the majority of Chinese ECEC teachers to catch up with the zeitgeist of contemporary international research and policy on intentional teaching in play.

scholarly journals A Personalised Needs-Led Group Approach to Induction: Perceptions of Early Academics in a University School of Education

2012 ◽  
Vol 37 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joy Jarvis ◽  
Claire Dickerson ◽  
Leo Chivers ◽  
Chris Collins ◽  
Libby Lee ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
School Of Education ◽  
Group Approach ◽  
Early Academics
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document