Exploring and Celebrating the Early Childhood Practitioner: An Interrogation of Pedagogy, Professionalism and Practice

This exciting new book celebrates, interrogates and re-imagines the complex and demanding role of the Early Childhood Practitioner. Exploring the many different facets of the Early Childhood Practitioner’s (ECP) role, it challenges normative constructions of practitioners and how they have been shaped by assumptions of history, culture and policy.

Drawing on a range of theoretical presumptions and debates, the chapters champion the multidimensional power and potentiality of the ECP, arguing for greater respect and recognition for a role that supports and enables at a crucial time in a child’s life. With opportunities for reflection, key topics include:

• The specialist pedagogical expertise of the ECP
• The key role that ECPs play in the child’s holistic wellbeing
• The ECP as diplomat across many professional contexts, effectively communicating with families and professionals
• The creative ECP, pushing traditional, normative boundaries of practice
• The ECP as so much more than they are customarily perceived as being.

This latest addition to the TACTYC series will be valuable reading for Early Years students – particularly on Masters level courses – as well as those working and researching in the Early Years sector.

Dr Carla Solvason is Senior Lecturer in the Department for Children and Families at the University of Worcester. She has a keen interest in ethical practice and respectful and sensitive approaches to research, areas in which she has published and presented widely.

Dr Rebecca Webb is Senior Lecturer in Early Years and Primary Education and a member of the Centre for Innovation and Research in Childhood and Youth, at the University of Sussex. Her research interests focus on pedagogies and practices of ‘not knowing’ and ‘uncertainty’.