Journal of Childhood, Education & Society

Stay in solidarity and share equally: An open access journal in childhood studies

Mehmet Toran — 2020-02-17

Journal of Childhood, Education & Society (JCES) was founded as a product of collective thought under the leadership of Dr. Mehmet Toran in July 2019 by a group of early childhood researchers who conduct both collaborative and independent academic research. Under the light of scientific research, current publishing policies cannot eliminate inequalities in public access for transfer and access of knowledge that is generated for the public weal (Beall, 2013). Particularly, having a limited access to the knowledge in early childhood studies is acknowledged as the first step for constitution of JCES. In this context, we would like to underline that independent researchers who are voluntarily taking part in the emergence of JCES are involved in a very courageous endeavour. This collective constitution takes an important responsibility for the public as well, and we point out that to fulfil this responsibility, it embraces moral and ethical rules as a reference point. Objectives, scope and ethical principles of JCES are determined with the contribution of the editorial board. In addition, we make promise to the larger research community of early childhood area that we will make sure to contribute to the area by giving a priority to high quality of research with robust evidence.

JCES adopts open science perspective in early childhood studies. Therefore, JCES has a high opinion of sharing the knowledge among people who are in children’s ecology democratically. Attaching importance to open science policy, JCES defends scientific knowledge as public property that should be shared with all without depressing its value (Tonta, 2015). In the light of this target, -as JCES editorial board- we believe that scientific information that has been produced as public property should be shared with everyone through open access. The scientific communication enhanced between researchers-practitioners-readers is aimed to put into practice through the “open access” method. In this context, as open access policy within JCES, we embraced non-profit, voluntary editorial operations without charging a fee either from the reader or authors. Our experiences during publishing our first issue promise that it can be put into practice with a collective movement voluntarily on a digital platform. Solidarity is possible to carry out editorial process not only in Turkey but also with a contribution from every corner of the world.

We have given extra importance to research ethics as our publishing policy. While specifying ethical principles, we aimed to take researcher’s attention to this issue. In this sense, after discussions with EECERA and then with the permission from Trustees of EECERA, we decided to embrace EECERA Ethical Code for Early Childhood Researchers that is formulated by Chris Pascal, Tony Bertram, Julia Formosinho, Colette Gray and Margy Whalley (2012). The ethical code bears qualification as a guide for researchers working in the early childhood area. We would like to indicate that applicant articles to the JCES are also evaluated in terms of those ethical codes during the editorial preliminary consideration process.

After calling for papers for the inaugural issue, we had a considerable amount of article applications. Those applications studiously evaluated by the referees after preliminary considerations. In this process, constructive feedback from the referees and the revisions authors made in consideration to given feedback contributed to quality of articles concurrently to the quality of the journal. Peer review process that is held studiously, on time and constructively demonstrated that solidarity is built correctly and truthfully. Therefore, we would like to especially thank the referees for the inaugural issue.

As you will see in the journal, there are six articles for the inaugural issue from five different countries: Belgium, Colombia, Israel, Tanzania and the USA. This variety is a result of effective publicity of the journal by editorial board and efficient use of digital platforms with open access policy. Besides that, especially the call for papers announcements by EECERA in their member mail groups and social media accounts demonstrated once more how important solidarity is. As a result of this solidarity and cooperation, we would like to underline that the geographical variety of applicant articles strengthen our faith and self-confidence as well.

After publishing first issue, we will continue pertinaciously working to strengthen international collaborations and to ensure continuity of the journal. Being aware of responsibility we are carrying and the risks we may face in the process, we would like to state that we have already taken necessary precautions. To ensure long running path and continuity of publishing for the journal, Gizem Alvan, Kerem Avcı and Taibe Kulaksız - doctorate students- have already started gaining experience in journal publishing and editorial administration process. These experiences would play an important role to provide sustainable publication of the journal. We would like to congratulate them to take part in a constitution courageously.

We would like to thank all partners who contributed to spreading information to publish interest with open access with their articles and their supports in the editorial process for the inaugural issue. We would like to state that the call for papers continues for the second issue of JCES which will be published in August 2020 and we are open to early childhood researchers’ original contributions.

Perspectives of teachers, children, and parents on the transition to first grade

Miriam Breuer — 2020-02-17

This research is a case study of a school that sought to ascertain what is required for the optimal adjustment of children to first grade from the perspective of each partner in the education triad – children, parents, and the teaching staff (teachers and assistant teachers). The research tools adapted to the participants are open-ended questionnaires to elicit the perspectives of the parents and teaching staff, and interviews of the children following their creation of a metaphorical collage to elicit their perspectives. Participants were three first-grade teachers, the assistant first-grade teacher, ten children from one of the first-grade classes, and twelve parents of these children. All the children attend a regional primary school and come from [cooperative Israeli settlements in central Israel. The findings indicate that the emotional climate of the school was regarded as positive by all the respondents. Although all respondents expressed a desire for more inter-personal communication with each other, the expectations of parents and teachers differed with respect to the desired frequency and setting limits on the communication between them. The paper also describes changes instituted to improve communication between the school and the parents in light of the research findings.

Muraling the invisible strings: Collective memory work from an educator inquiry group

Margaret Clark — 2020-02-17

In this qualitative study of a year-long educator inquiry workshop, nine early childhood educators engaged in the process of collective memory work to critically reflect on how their past experiences as young learners relates to their current teaching practices. Through an iterative analysis of the participants’ discussions and writings, this paper highlights how a group of educators shifted their way of thinking about teaching from a series of damage-based memories of restrictive learning environments towards a focus on desire-based stories of transformational and expansive learning experiences. For this group of teachers, this shift became an essential component to identifying how they could begin to work to create liberatory learning experiences and spaces for all students.

STEM starts early: Views and beliefs of early childhood education stakeholders in Tanzania

Laurent Gabriel Ndijuye — 2020-02-17

For about a decade, Tanzania has intensely focused on developing literacy and numeracy skills in pre-primary and early grades programs. Recently, the attention has shifted towards the significance of teaching Science, Mathematics, Technology and Science (STEM) in the early years. To enhance the 21^st century skills necessary for building a middle income and knowledge-based economies, the existing empirical evidence emphasizes the need for STEM education starting from pre-primary level. This paper aims to unpack the state of the STEM education in pre-primary education in Tanzania. By using homogenous purposive sampling, two policy-makers, three ECE academics, eight school principals, and eight pre-primary teachers from rural and urban public schools were recruited. Data were collected by interviews, semi-structured survey questionnaires, and documentary analyses. Though there was consensus among ECE stakeholders that children should be exposed to STEM environments as early as possible, findings indicated that even among ECE practitioners, there is a very vague understanding of what entails of STEM education in ECE. Further, while teachers were aware and guided to facilitate science and mathematics education, they were not aware and there were no specific policy briefs/circular instructions on how to facilitate Technology and Engineering education in ECE. The paper concludes with suggestions on how to integrate STEM in early childhood education, especially for Tanzania.

Parents’ role in adolescents’ leisure time use: From goals to parenting practices

Annelore Van der Eecken — 2020-02-17

Inspired by Ann Swidler’s toolkit theory, this qualitative study aims to achieve a better understanding of social class differences in parenting practices and, in turn, in young people’s leisure time use. To that end, 32 semi-structured face-to-face interviews with parents from middle- and working-class families were conducted in a small city in Belgium. An inductive thematic analysis revealed substantial social class differences with respect to three parenting practices: (1) setting an example, (2) resolving conflicts and (3) facilitating leisure activities. The interviews showed that these differences were mainly linked to social class differences in parents’ resources: working-class parents more often lacked flexible time, financial resources, an extensive social network on which they could rely and the institutionally required attitudes, skills and experience to engage in the above-mentioned parenting practices. We conclude that young people’s (continued) institutional leisure participation puts high requirements on parents and not all (working-class) parents are able to live up to such requirements. In that way, contemporary leisure settings reproduce rather than mitigate inequality in the use of leisure time.

Early childhood preservice teachers’ debugging block-based programs: An eye tracking study

Lucas Vasconcelos — 2020-02-17

Learning computational skills such as programming and debugging is very important for K-12 students given the increasing need of workforce proficient in computing technologies. Programming is an intricate cognitive task that entails iteratively creating and revising programs to create an artifact. Central to programming is debugging, which consists of systematically identifying and fixing program errors. Given its central role, debugging should be explicitly taught to early childhood preservice teachers so they can support their future students’ learning to program and debug errors. In this study, we propose using eye-tracking data and cued retrospective reporting to assess preservice teachers’ cognitive strategies while debugging. Several eye-tracking studies have investigated learners’ debugging strategies though the literature lacks studies (a) conducted with early childhood preservice teachers and (b) that focus on block-based programming languages, such as Scratch. The present study addresses this gap in the literature. This study used mixed methods to triangulate quantitative findings from eye movement analysis and qualitative findings about employed debugging strategies into the creation of descriptive themes. Results showed that participants developed strategies such as simultaneous review of output and code, use of beacons to narrow down the area to be debugged, and eye fixation on output to form hypotheses. But most often, debugging was not informed by a hypothesis, which led to trial and error. Study limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

Colombian retrospective study of the association between breastfeeding duration and eating behaviors

Carlos Rincón — 2020-02-17

The current retrospective cross-sectional study included 175 Colombian caregivers of children ranging between 24 and 59 months old (M=47.08, SD=7.08) enrolled in childcare centers located in the Caribbean region. 58% of the children are male, and all of them belong to low-income families. Breastfeeding duration ranged between children’s 0 to 37 months old (M=10.84, SD=8.48); 64 of them had exclusive breastfeeding for during their first 6 months (i.e., no fed with bottle). Results showed that the variance of Food Responsiveness explained by the model was 2% (R²=.02, F(3,161)=1.081, p=.359). Breastfeeding duration did not significantly predict Food Responsiveness (β=-.004, p=.219), as well as age (β=.004, p=.346) and gender (β=.056, p=.354) did not significantly explain the dependent variable. Likewise, Satiety Responsiveness variance was not explained by duration of breastfeeding (β=.002, p=.548), age (β=.003, p=.489), and gender (β=.040, p=.561). Overall, the explained variance was less than 1% (R²=.008, F(3,161)= .428, p=.733). Breastfeeding duration does not significantly change the child’s likelihood of being unhealthy (β=-.010, p=.616), while being male and getting older increase the odds of being healthy. Future directions and limitations are discussed.