THE FOUNDATIONS OF FLOURISHING AND OUR R

Neuroscientific evidence reveals that childcare centres are high stress environments which can disrupt the brain's emotional developmental circuitry during critical phases, impacting a child's later ability to flourish. At the same time evidence also reveals that some parenting practices are sub-optimal.

Exploring what it is infants really need to grow emotionally well, represents a largely unexplored issue. If the state wants to be populated by flourishing individuals, then this topic must be addressed.

Using an ethical framework to tease out the wide ranging, complex, and sometimes controversial issues that this dilemma presents, The Foundations of Flourishing and Our Responsibility to Infants follows a cross-disciplinary journey. The author pieces together pertinent issues in a synthesised critique of political, feminist, and moral philosophy, as well as psychological and neuroscientific findings, and offers some possible solutions.

It will be of interest to researchers and teachers in areas including philosophy, psychology, education, social care, as well as educators and policy-makers in early childhood development.

Dr Gillian Joiner has worked with parents and children as a social worker for 15 years. Her determination to understand more about the developmental needs of infants, and the family's influence on the individual, led her on an educational journey to gain her PhD in this field.