Autoethnography in Early Childhood Education and Care

Autoethnography in Early Childhood Education and Care both embraces and explores autoethnography as a methodology in early childhood settings, subsequently broadening discourses within education research through a series of troubling narratives. It breaks new ground for researchers seeking to use non-conventional practices in early years research.

Autoethnography in Early Childhood Education and Care both embraces and explores autoethnography as a methodology in early childhood settings, subsequently broadening discourses within education research through a series of troubling narratives. It breaks new ground for researchers seeking to use non-conventional practices in early years research.

Drawing together research and literature from several disciplines, this unique book challenges the perception of what it means to be an early years practitioner: powerful and compelling narratives, from the author's first-hand experiences, offer both a creative and scholarly insight into the issues faced by those working in early childhood settings. This text:

• offers insight into working with autoethnography; its purpose and methodological tensions;

• provides professionals engaged in caring relational approaches with a series of vignettes for training and further reflection;

• encourages a wider debate and discussion of core values at a critical time in early years practice and other caring professions

• skilfully and sensitively illustrates how to adopt a creative research imagination.

  This book is a valuable read for researchers, postgraduate students and other professionals working in early childhood education and care seeking to give expression to their voices through creative methodologies such as autoethnography in qualitative research.

  Autorentext

  Elizabeth Henderson has worked in education for more than thirty years in a variety of settings, both in the state and voluntary sector, from nursery through to university. Elizabeth currently works for a local authority in Scotland providing support and advice for those working in the early years sector.

  Inhalt

  Part 1: Troubling Narratives Chapter 1: White rabbits fly kites: Working in challenging contexts, finding liminality Chapter 2: A silence louder than words: Listening, attunement and 'voice' Chapter 3: Darren, the wild boy: Poverty and early intervention, what price? Chapter 4: Listening to Lola: Embodying care and safeguarding Part 2: Your world, my world, our embodied world Chapter 5: Light and sound: Negotiating illness and the final threshold Chapter 6: A tale of two halves and more: Considering difference and listening Chapter 7: Dog-eyed: How do children see their world? How do we see them? Part 3: Autoethnography at work Chapter 8: Working with autoethnography: finding my voice: Considerations of methodology Chapter 9: Beyond narratives and solipsism to ethical knowing: Ethics and self-care Chapter 10: Analysis, is it necessary?: Speaking and reading from the heart Chapter 11: Origins: Sowing the seeds of personal values Chapter 12: References