International Trends in Research: Redressing the North-South Balance in What Matters for Early Childhood Education Research

Abstract

Knowledge construction in early childhood education has tended to be dominated by perspectives on what matters for countries in the Northern hemisphere, with limited attention being directed to the research needs and activities of countries in the Southern hemisphere. This chapter seeks to redress this situation by reviewing the content of the first volume of the handbook with a north-south analytical framework in mind. The outcomes of this analysis are focused around: What are the research trends evident, what methods are primarily drawn upon, and what theories have framed the studies and the findings? This analysis draws upon cultural-historical theory, notably Hedegaard’s model of societal, institutional and personal perspectives for the holistic study of what matters. In order to understand the research landscape being presented regionally and internationally, the societal and institutional practices of specific countries, along with the activity settings of early childhood education, also require examination. These conditions give context to the research needs of a community, and shape how answers to pressing problems are framed, and findings theorised. It is argued in this chapter that ‘First World problems’ have colonised the international early childhood vista and distorted research trajectories and narratives around what counts as valuable knowledge for the field. In contrast, the theoretical contradictions and political contexts of countries in the south have generated exciting problems that make visible important international developments currently blind to the north. Diversification and the relations between play and learning were central problems identified in the analysis. From an international perspective, the maturity of early childhood research rests on what is currently evolving in the majority world and not those of the well-resourced north. This chapter seeks to make a scholarly contribution by making visible an analysis of the activities of countries in the north and south with a view to theorising new perspectives on what constitutes a more balanced view of international research in early childhood education.