Developmentalism in Early Childhood and Middle Grades Education Critical Conversations on Readiness and Responsiveness

by Lee, Kyunghwa; Vagle, Mark D.

• ISBN13: 9780230619807
• ISBN10: 0230619800
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-06-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

In this book, the contributors challenge dominant discourses and practices in the fields of early childhood and middle grades education that are based on the last century's grand developmental theories. The contributors to this book examine the notion of development in their own work by employing various alternative frameworks, including Bakhtinian ideas, Buddhism, cultural psychology, and post-structuralism. Exploring issues related to developmentalism within and across the fields, the contributors invite the reader to participate in the cross-field dialogue which provides new language and perspectives for the education of young children, young adolescents, and teachers in both fields.

Author Biography

Kyunghwa Lee is Associate Professor in Early Childhood Education at the University of Georgia. A former kindergarten teacher from Korea, Lee explores cultural psychology as an alternative framework of the twentieth century's grand developmental theories. She utilizes ethnography and cross-national research to examine various sociohistorical constraints that both support and hinder teaching and learning. Her work has been published in various journals, including Early Childhood Education Journal, Early Childhood Research & Practice, Educational Technology Research and Development, International Journal of Early Childhood Education, Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, Journal of Early Childhood Research, and Journal of Research in Childhood Education. She has guest-edited (with Stacey Neuharth-Pritchett) a special issue, "Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder across Cultures: Development and Disability in Contexts," of Early Child Development and Care.
Mark D. Vagle is Assistant Professor of Middle Grades education in the Department of Elementary and Social Studies Education at the University of Georgia. Before working in higher education, Vagle taught in elementary and middle schools and was a middle school assistant principal. Vagle received his Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. His current research and teaching can be broadly described as a continual pursuit of the dynamic interaction (tension, struggle) between relational and technical dimensions of pedagogy, especially as such dimensions are lived in context and over time. To this end, Vagle draws on critical perspectives and uses phenomenology in his research. Vagle's work has been published or is in press in the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, Handbook of Research in Middle Level Education (volume 6), Research in Middle Level Education Online, National Reading Conference Yearbook, Education and Culture, and Pedagogies: An International Journal.

Table of Contents

Series Editor's Preface	p. vii
General Introduction: Developmentalism and the Need for Critical Conversations within and across the Fields	p. 1
Are They Ready Yet?	p. 11
What's More Important: Numbers or Shoes? Readiness, Curriculum, and Nonsense in a Rural Preschool	p. 17
Who is Normal? Who is Abnormal? Rethinking Child Development from a Cultural Psychological Perspective	p. 35
Being Present in the Middle School Years	p. 59
Am I a Novice Teacher? The Voices of Induction Teachers in a Preschool	p. 79
Responsivity rather than Readiness	p. 99
Responsive to What?	p. 109
Pursuing an Answerable Education for Young Adolescents: Implications for Critical Middle Grades Literacy Teacher Education	p. 115
Black Adolescent Identity, Double-Consciousness, and a Sociohistorically Constructed Adolescence	p. 131
Fourteen is the New Thirty: Adolescent Girls, their Bodies, and Sexuality	p. 149
The SMART Board as an Adolescent Classroom Technology	p. 169
A Critical Perspective on Human Development: Implications for Adolescence, Classroom Practice, and Middle School Policy	p. 183
Conversations across Fields	p. 209
A Schismatic Family and a Gated Community?	p. 213
Walking the Borderland	p. 233
Notes on Contributors	p. 255
Index	p. 259
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