Early Childhood Studies: An Introduction to the Study of Children's World and Children's Lives

Early Childhood Studies is increasingly regarded as a separate academic discipline, backed up by a range of new UK initiatives and documentation. The new edition of this popular core text reflects such changes, providing comprehensive, up-to-date coverage of course content, and an overview of current issues and approaches. It reflects the multi-professional, multi-disciplinary scope of Early Childhood Studies, introducing different ways of studying children's lives. Further, it includes new material related to the UK Birth to Three Matters, Every Child Matters, and the National Professional Qualification in Integrated Centre Leadership, and is linked throughout to the new UK Standards for Early Years Professional Status.

Jenny Willan teaches on modules with a focus on research methodology. She previously worked in educational research at the University of Cambridge and the National Foundation for Educational Research. She has worked on children's writing, gender studies and teacher action research. Rod Parker-Rees is joint co-ordinator of ECS. He taught 3 to 5 year old children in Bristol and conducted research with the National Primary Centre (South West) before joining the University of Plymouth. Jan Savage, PhD, is joint co-ordinator of ECS and helped to develop both the specialist pathway on the B.Ed and the BA (Hons) degree in ECS. She is interested in promoting an inter-disciplinary collaborative approach to Continued Professional Development work in Early Years developing links across the sector. She worked for fifteen years as a nursery teacher in both London and Devon.