Abstract
What brings together concepts such as child, families and communities? In this chapter some actual problems in the field related to this heading will be discussed. It has been problematized how children through abstract understandings have been isolated from the social world and its multiplicity of relations. Going up against abstract isolation of development as a solo project calls for conceptual possibilities for analysing developmental conditions and how persons in a concrete way make up conditions to each other. This involves new questions and matters including children’s significance for each other, the shared care between different parties involved in the life course of children and children’s everyday life across contexts. In these introducing reflections I will touch on how these interrelated significances point to conceptualizing the child as a participant in compound and historical social practice. In that way the composition of the three concepts in the heading of this part of the book may offer possibilities for exploring children’s development as an aspect of their participation in everyday activities and situated interplay. The changing theoretical perspectives on ‘child’, ‘families’ and ‘communities’ will be discussed and in the end the following chapters are presented.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Burman, E. (1994/2017) Deconstructing developmental psychology. London: Routledge. ISBN: 0–415–06438-4 (pbk) & 0–415006437-6 (hbk).
Davies, B. (1989). Frogs and snails and feminist tales. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Davies, B. (1993). Shards of glass: Children reading and writing beyond gendered identities. Cresskill: Hampton Press.
Davies, B. (2014). Listening to children. London/New York: Routledge, Taylors & Francis Group.
Haavind, H. (1987). Liten og stor: Mødres omsorg og barns utviklingsmuligheter [Small and big: Mother’s care and children’s developmental possibilities]. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
Haavind, H. (2011). Loving and caring for small children: Contested issues for everyday practices. Nordic Psychology, 63(2), s24–s48. doi:10.1027/1901-2276/a000031.
Hedegaard. (2012). Analyzing children’s learning and development in everyday settings from a cultural-historical wholeness approach. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 19, 127–138.
Hedegaard, M., & Fleer, M. (2013). Play, learning and children’s development: Everyday life in families and transition to school. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hedegaard, M., Aronsson, K., Højholt, C., & Ulvik, O. (2012). Children, childhood and everyday life – children’s perspective. Charlotte: Information Age Publishing Inc.
Højholt, C. (2016). Children’s conduct of life and social conflicts about children – situated inequality and political aspects of social practice. In E. Schraube & C. Højholt (Eds.), Psychology and the conduct of everyday life. London: Routledge.
Tudge, J. R. H. (2008). The everyday lives of young children: Culture, class, and child rearing in diverse societies. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Tudge, J., & Hogan, D. (2005). An ecological approach to observations of children’s everyday lives. In S. Greene & D. Hogan (Eds.), Researching children’s experience (pp. 102–121). Thousands Oaks: Sage Publications.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Højholt, C. (2018). Introducing Reflections. In: Fleer, M., van Oers, B. (eds) International Handbook of Early Childhood Education. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-0927-7_76
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-0927-7_76
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-024-0925-3
Online ISBN: 978-94-024-0927-7
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)