Full Description
This Volume is the culminating project of 10 years of collaborative study in a preschool classroom, where each year, 3- and 4-year olds and their teachers meet daily to construct a life together in an early childhood program. In the chapters, each author presents a discussion of his or her early childhood education topic of interest. In each chapter the uniqueness of a sociocultural/ethnographic perspective and the field of a data analysis is highlighted through a comparison with a traditional early childhood literature on that topic. Certain salient and pervasive ""cultural themes"" emerged across analyses: peer culture and school culture, social construction, and educational possibilities. These analyses extend our understanding of a single classroom to broader implications for theory and practice.
Contents
Becoming Ethnographers of an Early Childhood Classroom, Rebecca Kantor and David Fernie. Complexities of Learning in a Small Group, Donna Williams. A Peer Culture Perspective on Social Group Play, Peg Elgas. The Social Construction of ""Outsiders"" in the Preschool, James A. Scott, Jr. Individual Pathways Through Preschool, Paula McMurray-Schwarz. Diverse Paths to Literacy in a Preschool Classroom, Sandra Marie Miller. Deaf Children in Inclusive Early Childhood Classrooms, Cheri Williams. What We Have Learned Through an Ethnographic Lens, David Fernie and Rebecca Kantor. Author Index, Subject Index.