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Infants’ Practices: Shaping (and Shaped by) the Arrangements of Early Childhood Education

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Exploring Education and Professional Practice

Abstract

Research about infant pedagogy is often restricted to educators’ espoused beliefs and interpretations, with a limited view into how those beliefs might be enacted in practice and potentially impact on babies’ lived experiences. This chapter examines infants’ practices in early childhood education (ECE) contexts, and the arrangements of ECE practice that enable and constrain them. Drawing on data generated from the author’s doctoral study, the chapter considers the conceptions of educators as among the practice architectures which shape infants’ practices. How educators’ conceptions of infants’ capabilities manifest in their sayings, doings, and relatings is briefly explored. The primary focus on infants’ subsequent practices reveals the potential impact of the practice architectures of ECE on opportunities for babies’ learning, and adds to existing literature about infants’ lived experiences in ECE settings. Infants’ practices are not only shaped by the practice architectures of ECE, they also shape the practices of educators and, so, the practice architectures of their particular setting. Implications for the agency of infants in actively contributing to their lived experiences in ECE settings are discussed.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Stratigos (2015), for example. Stratigos (2015) described the interconnected nature of other children, spaces, materials, and adults (including herself) in an infant’s desire to ‘belong’.

  2. 2.

    For more detail, see the study by Sumsion et al. (2011) of what life is like for infants in Australian ECE contexts.

  3. 3.

    The ‘cultural-discursive, material-economic, and social-political’ environment in the theory of practice architecture terms.

  4. 4.

    The ‘Practice Architectures Map ’ was central to the participatory process of generating and analysing data with the educators. Created with a methodological attitude of ethical symmetry (Christensen and Prout 2002), the map served as an external and shared point of reference in the group discussions. Educators received information regarding the theory of practice architectures and a copy of the map with the intention of making the conceptual framework of the research accessible to them, and enabling their participation in the research process. The map was printed, enlarged, and eventually laminated, and was placed centrally during the group discussions.

  5. 5.

    See Parten (1932).

  6. 6.

    The practices of the other babies were also significant in shaping (and being shaped by) Sophie’s practices. However, discussing the impact of other babies’ practices is beyond the scope of this chapter.

  7. 7.

    Based on Bourdieu ’s notion of capital as a crucial source of power (Bourdieu 1986), I conceived of ‘emotional capital ’ as a baby’s ultimate source of power. Since babies are born able to cry and since adults are genetically engineered for babies’ cries to evoke a response, it seemed clear that, given the nature of infants learning what they repeatedly live, and acting intentionally with that learning, babies might quickly perfect their emotional communication in sophisticated and agentic ways. Andrew (2015) uses the notion of emotional capital to refer to a “repertoire of emotional resources” (p. 1) that EC educators draw on in their practice, which become embodied in time. Following Bourdieu ’s notions of symbolic economies, he considers that this set of emotional skills form a vital part of EC educators’ practices. Andrew’s (2015) research focuses solely on educators’ emotional practices. However, his notion of emotional capital sits well with my observations of the infants’ practices and their use of an emotionally evocative repertoire of skills.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge and thank my supervisors, Professors Jennifer Sumsion and Linda Harrison and Associate Professor Fran Press, for their invaluable mentorship. I would also like to acknowledge and thank the editors of this book for their ongoing support and the critical feedback that helped re-shape this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Teacher Education, Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, Australia

    Andi Salamon

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  1. Andi Salamon
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Correspondence to Andi Salamon .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Educational Research and Development, University of Borås, Borås, Sweden

    Kathleen Mahon

  2. School of Education, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia

    Susanne Francisco

  3. Research Institute for Professional Practice, Learning and Education (RIPPLE), Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia

    Stephen Kemmis

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Salamon, A. (2017). Infants’ Practices: Shaping (and Shaped by) the Arrangements of Early Childhood Education. In: Mahon, K., Francisco, S., Kemmis, S. (eds) Exploring Education and Professional Practice. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2219-7_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2219-7_5

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