Session Information
04 SES 07 A, Early Childhood and Family
Paper Session
Contribution
The current focus upon personalisation and identified individual needs are seemingly effective policy tools for bringing together agendas of choice, inclusion and standards, and fits with established professional structures for supporting labelled individuals too (Rix, in press). However, this focus upon the individual, even when it is ‘holistic’ can be seen to contradict the ways in which we know people develop and learn. Identity and learning can both be seen as context dependent. Learning is a social activity in which we feel we are valued participants (Rogoff, 1990); it is ‘an evolving, continuously renewed set of relations’ (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p50). The focus on the individual simplifies the complex nature of individual identity, which is both created by difference and creates difference. The categories we use to frame any individual cannot be seen as absolutes; they are social constructions which at best reflect shifting complexities. In order to understand an individual’s learning and identity it is therefore necessary to question the complex context in which the ‘continuously renewed set of relations’ is developing.
This paper presents the child as context. It explores a child’s development as a continuously renewing set of relations, using a model of collective development (Rix, 2009 - based upon Rogoff, 2003). This model focuses not upon ‘proper’, culturally constructed ways we expect the child to develop (Woodhead 2005, pg9 ) but upon the developing context in which they ARE and the developing views of the observer. For example, the paper considers the ongoing development of local authority policy, staff attitudes to training, local community engagement and the identity of others involved operating within this developing context. It evidences the continuously renewed set of relations from which the child cannot be isolated.
This model is applied to the context of the author’s first eight years of life with his labelled son and juxtaposed with his research with other families undertaking early intervention, the developmental journal supplied by the Early Support programme in England and the discourse associated with his son’s label. Contradictions and possible divergences are posed as questions which could serve to scaffold future learning opportunities and the collective development of context. Implications for our use of labels and other categorising technologies are highlighted, as is the resistance we face in disrupting how we ARE in context.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991) Situated learning – Legitimate peripheral participation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Paige-Smith, A and Rix, J (2006) ‘Parents perceptions and children’s experiences of early intervention – inclusive practice?’ Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, NASEN, Vol 6 No 6. Paige-Smith, A. & Rix, J. (2009) Researching Early Intervention and young children’s perspectives – developing and using a ‘listening to children approach’, BERA conference, University of Manchester, 2-5 September 2009 Rix, J. (2009) Something to think about: seeking out barriers to reflection and learning, presented at JORSEN Research Seminar, Professional Development for Inclusive Education, University House, University of Leeds, Leeds 18th November 2009 Rix, J. (in press) The Repositioning of Special Schools within a Specialist, Personalised Educational Marketplace – The need for a Representative Principle, International Journal of Inclusive Education Rix, J., and Paige-Smith, A., (2008a) A different head? Parental agency and early intervention, Disability and Society, Vol 23, No 3, May 2008, p. 211-221. Rix, J., Paige-Smith, A. & Jones, H. (2008) “Until the cows came home” – Issues for early intervention activities? Parental perspectives on the early years learning of their children with Down syndrome, International Journal of Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 9, 1, 66-79 Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship in thinking. New York: Oxford University Press Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. (1998) Basics of Qualitative Research; Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory, USA; Sage Publications. Woodhead, M. (2005) Early Childhood Development: a question of rights, International Journal of Early Childhood, 37, 3, pp. 79-98.
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