This paper was completed by Roya Hooshmand & myself as a group assignment in our EDUC 30199 Early Childhood Program & System Deliver course in the ECL program.
As our visual course concept-map illustrates there is a correlational relationship amongst research, policy and practice and how they influence each other in the profession of early childhood education. It is essential for early childhood educators to have a comprehensive understanding of these three important concepts and how they intertwine in the profession of early childhood education. The focus of this paper is to discuss the relationship between research, policy and practice within the profession of ECE in Ontario.
As it is shown in the visual mind map, the material presented in this course regarding policy in the profession of ECE influence both practice and research components. These policies adhere to the Canadian government in regards to the profession of ECE under three levels of regulation; national/federal, provincial, municipal/local. The article Democracy as First Practice in Early Childhood Education and Care expresses the relationship between policy and practice in early childhood education and the role of democracy as a policy in education field at federal, provincial and local level.
“Democratic practice in early childhood education and care must operate at several levels: not just the institutional that is, the nursery or preschool, but also at national or federal, regional and local levels. Each level has responsibility for certain choices, using “choice” to mean the democratic process of collective decision-making for the common good (to reclaim it from the neo-liberal usage of “choice” as decision-making by individual consumers.)8,9 Each level should support the operation of democracy at other levels.” (Moss, 2011, p.2).
Based on the content presented in the course policy has more influence on practice that practice has on policy. Only very recently practice is slightly impacting policy making and that is due to educators questioning how realistic implementing these policies in practice or even the adequate amount of research behind some policies. The influence of practice on policy is very light because the relationship that policy has with practice and research is more conforming as some of these policies under different regulations must be followed regardless of the circumstances of different individuals as attached to their action. When conducting research there are a set of ethics and policies that need to be ECE’s. If ECE’s do not obey these policies in practice there would be expensive consequences followed and that is how policy influences research in a conforming way. For example, the ELECT framework which falls under policy in the mind-map, influences practice as this document is composed of set of guidelines that early childhood educators are advised to follow when working with children in Ontario. The ECE Act, Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice are all policies within the College of ECE that every registered early childhood educator with this college has to adhere to in practice.
Unlike practice, research has more influence on policy in the profession of Early Childhood Education. According to the course materials presented within EC Programs System Delivery and Human Development courses, some materials that are identified as research are studies on brain development and research on newer concepts such as Self-Regulation, Temperament and Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system theory. These researches impact and guide both practice and policy. The work done on Self-Regulation in Ontario by Shanker is raising great amount of awareness among educators in regards to child development and has offered advice on how it can be implemented in practice developmental and experimental along with modern psychology have made numerous amount of research accessible on brain development and temperament which in result raised awareness to public and government about the significance of the early years in a person’s life. (Shanker, N.A.) This lead to creating new policies such as the establishment of College of ECE to recognize ECE as a regulated profession. This change. The book Shaping Early Childhood by Glenda MacNaughton can serve us as research that guides our practice in regards to which position we hold and what forms conforming, reforming and transforming positions in ECE. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system theory has is another source of research that also influences practice in ECE. In accordance to Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system theory, practice influences the child and staff on an micro level. However its the policies made at at the macrosystem and exosystem (federal and provincial levels). For instance, at the macrosystem and exosystem, the federal and provincial government assist in funding, subsidy, ECEC administration, policies and regulation. Whereas on the microsystem level, the daily practice occurs among the interactions with children, early childhood educators, and parents. (Module 1: Class 2 Frameworks of Quality., 2012, Slide 12). This theory guides ECE’s in practice in relation to holding a transforming position-considering child’s surrounding and different systems that affect the child and how the child in return impacts the society.
Although Research’s influence on practice is greater based on course content, practice can influence research within ECE profession through new methods of doing research such as action research and participatory action research where what works practically can go back to research. In action research, practice is a component of the research process. This shows that practice is starting to influence research. The way that research influences practice is reforming because we the findings of research is used in practice but when practice has a part in research, the relationship becomes more transforming.
There are previous research presented by developmental theorists that demonstrated findings which influenced in establishing some policies and set guidelines. For example, Fraser Mustard produced a well known document known as Early Years Study 3 (2011) as a result of his research. Him alongwith his colleagues who created this document essentially emphasized on the importance of children (2 years old) receiving formal education. Early Years Study 3 provided supportive evidences which indicate that research studies illustrate the critical learning period for children in their early years. This then lead to changes within the policy as to how the Ontario government will provide childcare services to families and support early years learning. Another example of how research influences the policy is when Premier Dalton McGuinty asked Dr. Charles Pascal to formulate the best way to implement a full day learning for 4 – 5 years old in the kindergarten program. Pascal created a document called With Our Best Future in Mind: Implementing Early Learning in Ontario (2007). The result of this research based document provided the Ontario government with a clear indication of the direction they needed to take in order to improve the development in early learning.
Through materials and content presented in our EC System Delivery class, we learned how daily practices are guided by policies. For instance, the constant reminder of keeping ratio among children and staff members. Early childhood educators are obligated to following rules and regulations under the Day Nurseries Act.
In the course material, different curriculums models in Ontario such as High Scope, Reggio Emilia, Montessori, Frobel fall under the practice component. As educators we are to use these models to achieve one common outcome and that is to educate children through a system. However, regardless of which curriculum model the children and educators are within, it is through the pedagogy view of the educator in his/her practice that creates the outcome. The three different pedagogical views as presented in the concept-map are teacher directed, learner directed, process oriented. The article Pedagogy – a holistic, personal approach to work with children and young people, across services (2005).brings forth research that provides key principles of pedagogical practices and what social pedagogy means in education. Some of these principles are as follow: “ a focus on the child as a whole person, and support for the child’s overall development; as professionals, pedagogues are encouraged to constantly reflect on their work and to bring both theoretical understandings and self-knowledge to the process;….” (Petrie, Boddy, Cameron, Heptinstall,, McQuall, Simon, & Wigfall., 2005).This is an example of how research influences practice in the ECE profession.
Image of the child is another subject discussed in this course and is a great example of a concept that does not only belong to the practice, research or policy component. Image of a child is a perspective we should gain on every individual child in practice while considering different aspects that she/he is affected by but that’s not the only place this image lies. Image of the child has become a very political question but the most important thing for an educator is to be very well aware of how and why research, practice and policy and economy can influence the image we hold of a child in Ontario.
As it is evident on the concept-map, policy and research influence the practice component in the profession of ECE. However, we are beginning to notice that sometimes our daily practices cannot realistically live up to the policies in place due to lack of inadequate solid updated research behind some policies. Therefore, when conducting research and forming policies in the profession of ECE, what is effective in practice should be taken into consideration. Most importantly we as educators need to understand the relationship between policy, research and practice within our profession.
Reference
MacNaughton, G. (2003). Shaping Early Childhood. Retrieved from http://books.google.ca/books?id=vj-nH6j1FQC&pg=PA333&dq=Shaping+Early+Childhood+by+Glenda+Macnaughton+%28Dec+1+2003%29&hl=en&sa=X&ei=zDtcUbX8H8Wo4AOwqYCoCQ&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Shaping%20Early%20Childhood%20by%20Glenda%20Macnaughton%20%28Dec%201%202003%29&f=false
Moss, P. (2011). Democracy as First Practice in Early Childhood Education and Care. Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development. Retrieved from http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/documents/MossANGxp1.pdf
Petrie P., Boddy J., Cameron C., Heptinstall E., McQuall S., Simon A., & Wigfall V., (2005, June). Pedagogy – a holistic, personal approach to work with children and young people, across services. Retreived from http://www.ncb.org.uk/media/770405/cwct_handout_2_pedagogy_paper.pdf
Shankar, S. (N.A.) Self Regulation. Retrieved from http://www.self-regulation.ca/download/pdf%282%29/magforbooklet.pdf
Shalimo,D. (2012).Module 1: Class 2 Frameworks of Quality. PowerPoint presented at EDUC 38263, Sheridan College, Brampton.
Anjanie Chooraman 