First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Traditional work on child development is often based on notions of an individual and decontextualized child. This volume involves a contribution to the rethinking of development: it presents a number of situated studies where children’s perspectives are documented through their interaction with others in situated practices, in family life and school and across social contexts. This volume offers a toolkit for analyzing children’s perspectives and participation over time. In prior work, the interview has often been seen as the cardinal method – or the only method – for studying children’s perspectives. This anthology includes vignettes and case studies, with descriptions of children’s actions in situated activity settings as well as illustrative transcripts from video-recorded social interaction. It opens up toward a broader view of ‘development’ in that it documents how children’s and youths’ perspectives and agency can be studied through their ways of interacting (or not interacting) in everyday life. One aspect of this is their verbal and nonverbal participation in family life and the social landscape of schools. Another feature is that it involves several chapters that problematize ‘impaired practices’ and dilemmas in the teaching of children with dysfunctions. The book as a whole is rich in empirical ethnographic examples that highlight life trajectories in and across social contexts. Moreover, it features interview data and narratives that include children’s and youths’ own reflections on their lives and experiences of the social demands of family and school. This includes their own thoughts on being or becoming members of local communities.

Young Children, Pedagogy and the Arts is an innovative text that describes practices and research that cross all five strands of the arts—visual, drama, music, dance, and media—and illuminates ways of understanding children and their arts practices that go beyond the common traditions. The book: - Offers practical and rich illustrations of teachers’ and children’s work based on international research that integrates theory with practice; - Brings a critical lens to arts education; - Includes summaries, reflective questions, and recommended further readings with every chapter. Young Children, Pedagogy and the Arts provides a more nuanced understanding of the arts through an exploration of specific instances in which committed teachers and researchers are discovering what contemporary multimodal tools offer to young children. Chapters contain examples of ‘doing’ the arts in the early years, new ways of teaching, and how to use emerging technologies to develop multiliteracies, equity, agency, social and cultural capital, and enhance the learning and engagement of marginalized children.

Expanding the definition and use of literacies beyond verbal and written communication, this book examines contemporary literacies through action-focused analysis of bodies, places, and media. Nexus analysis examines how people enact and mobilize meanings that are largely unspoken. Wohlwend demonstrates how nexus analysis can be used as a tool to critically analyze and understand action in everyday settings, to provide a deeper understanding of how meanings are produced from a mix of modes in daily social and cultural contexts. Organized in three sections—Engaging Nexus, Navigating Nexus, and Changing Nexus—this book provides a roadmap to applying nexus analysis to literacy research, and offers tools to enable readers to compare methods across contexts. Designed to help readers understand the theoretical and methodological assumptions and goals of nexus analysis in classroom and literacy research, this book provides a comprehensive understanding of the theory, framework, and foundations of nexus analysis, by using multimodal examples such as films and media, artifacts, live action performances, and more. Each chapter features consistent sections on key ideas and methods, and a description of procedures for replication and application.

Understanding Child Development, 7e is a text designed for students in early childhood teacher preparation programs, and for teacher's in-service and those in related in-service and preparation programs. It is now available in the seventh edition, and includes many new features and benefits. For students, it introduces the unique qualities of the young child as distinguished from older children, and demonstrates how to work with young children in ways that correspond with their individual developmental level and social and cultural environment. For in-service teachers, the text offers an opportunity to evaluate their views of young children and compare them with the views presented in the text. In each section of the book, critical social and cultural factors are related to young children's development, and factors relevant to working with children with special needs are integrated throughout the text. Other areas covered include developmentally appropriate practice, readiness, assessment, working with children and families from diverse cultures, development of early stages of reading, the importance of brain development, and play and learning. Content is connected directly to the importance of play and technology to a young child's learning is included, along with the popular theoretical views of learning. Many real life examples and anecdotes are included in the text in order to make theory and research come alive. The text is organized in larger sections with chapter divisions that provide the reader with easily digested segments of material. Each chapter includes boxed problems for reflection and for further learning, as well as further activities, reference lists, and review questions at the end of each chapter. The text includes many examples, explanatory charts, and full color photographs, and the online resources are expanded.

This edited work is a valuable resource for those studying and working with young children. Chapters emphasise the relationship between theory, research, and practice, and provide 'illustrations of equitable and inclusive practices that move us toward social justice' in the critical field of early childhood education.