[This post is part of my Noteworthy Early Childhood Development (ECD) Resources series, which rounds up and highlights key resources on particular topics.] Resilience – the capacity to adapt to and cope with change and stress – is fundamental to well-being. Building resilience in early childhood lays the foundation for long-term academic and social success. In … Continue reading
[This post is part of my Noteworthy Early Childhood Development (ECD) Resources series, which rounds up and highlights key resources on particular topics.] Research and data are important matters in the field of early childhood – enabling us to better understand contexts and perspectives, develop better-informed approaches and programmes, and assess impact and outcomes. In today’s edition, … Continue reading
[This post is part of my Noteworthy Early Childhood Development (ECD) Resources series, which rounds up and highlights key resources on particular topics.] In today’s edition, I’d like to share with you four important international resources in early childhood development that I have come across in the last few weeks: a digital children’s library, two books, … Continue reading
Recently, the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) released a publication summarizing and reflecting upon major research studies carried out alongside AKF’s education initiatives in ten countries (Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique, and Portugal). For each study, the publication provides a brief introduction to the programme, an overview of the study design, and a summary of … Continue reading
I was invited to contribute an ethics case study for the “Ethical Research Involving Children: International Charter and Guidelines”. [UPDATE Oct. 30, 2013: The charter has now been published and can be found with additional resources at this website: Ethical Research Involving Children.] In my previous post I described the background context and ethical challenge. Here is … Continue reading
Many of us who engage in research with children, especially in diverse contexts of the world, often struggle with ethical concerns. In response to this, a group of international researchers has been developing an international set of guidelines and considerations for ethical research with children. The document “Ethical Research Involving Children: International Charter and Guidelines” … Continue reading
Recent news articles have been discussing the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project being implemented in various parts of the Majority World. Here’s an article at Mashable, and another at Dvice. Basically, the OLPC programme recently gave tablets to Grade-1-aged children in two remote Ethiopian villages. OLPC has given tablets to children before. What was different … Continue reading
Despite increasing awareness that culture and context shape our understandings and practices, there are still concepts in the early childhood discourse that we take for granted and don’t question as core tenets or principles. For example, we don’t generally interrogate or critique the idea that children learn through play, or the larger notion of ‘child-centered’ … Continue reading
Last week I was at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) conference, and this week I am at the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) conference. I have been thinking about ‘knowledge’, the ‘application’ of knowledge, and the ‘how’ of that application. At the AERA opening plenary, Linda Tuhiwai Smith spoke on the conference theme … Continue reading
Learning and development occur within social and physical contexts. Not only do learning and development occur within contexts, but in fact are shaped by contexts. Over the last few years, I have had opportunities to work with child development and early education programmes in various global contexts. In one of my earlier experiences working in the Majority … Continue reading
Sadaf Shallwani 