Autoethnography in Early Childhood Education and Care: Narrating the Heart of Practice

Description

Autoethnography in Early Childhood Education and Care both embraces and explores autoethnography as a methodology in early childhood settings, subsequently broadening discourses within education research through a series of troubling narratives. It breaks new ground for researchers seeking to use non-conventional practices in early years research. Drawing together research and literature from several disciplines, this unique book challenges the perception of what it means to be an early years practitioner: powerful and compelling narratives, from the author’s first-hand experiences, offer both a creative and scholarly insight into the issues faced by those working in early childhood settings. This text: offers insight into working with autoethnography; its purpose and methodological tensions; provides professionals engaged in caring relational approaches with a series of vignettes for training and further reflection; encourages a wider debate and discussion of core values at a critical time in early years practice and other caring professions skilfully and sensitively illustrates how to adopt a creative research imagination. This book is a valuable read for researchers, postgraduate students and other professionals working in early childhood education and care seeking to give expression to their voices through creative methodologies such as autoethnography in qualitative research. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Contents Foreword Preface Acknowledgements Introduction: Sketching the landscape and setting the early years scene PART I: Troubling narratives 1 White rabbits fly kites: Working in challenging contexts, finding liminality 2 A silence louder than words: Listening, attunement and ‘voice’ 3 Darren, the wild boy: Poverty and early intervention, what price? 4 Listening to Lola: Embodying care and safeguarding PART II: Your world, my world, our embodied world 5 Light and sound: Negotiating illness and the final threshold 6 A tale of two halves and more: Considering difference and listening 7 Dog-eyed: How do children see their world? How do we see them? PART III: Autoethnography at work 8 Working with autoethnography: Finding my voice — considerations of methodology 9 Beyond narratives and solipsism to ethical knowing: Ethics and self-care 10 Analysis: Speaking and reading from the heart 11 Origins: Sowing the seeds of personal values References Index