Faculty of Education - Theses

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Start date: 2013 × End date: 2013 × Subject: early childhood ×

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    Gender discourses and teacher-talk: reconceptualising teachers' roles in promoting gender equity in Pakistani early childhood classrooms
    D'SOUZA JUMA, AUDREY ( 2013)
    This study used feminist poststructuralist theories to reconceptualise teachers’ roles in promoting gender equity in early childhood classrooms in Pakistan. Whilst, how to promote gender equity in early childhood classrooms have been studied in western settings; this is one of the first studies to explore this issue in depth in the Pakistani context. The study used participatory action research to gather data about how twelve teachers enacted gender equity in their classrooms. That data included detailed observations and videotaped data of interactions between teachers and children, interviews with teachers, conversations with children, field notes, monthly meetings of the action research group and reflective journals collected over a ten month period. I found that reconceptualising gender equity in Pakistan is both risky and contradictory because of the discursive ‘regime of religious patriarchy’ that frames and bounds this work. Specifically, discourses of morality, essentialism, heterosexuality, male supremacy and sexuality limited how teachers enacted gender equity in their classrooms and the risks they perceived and at times were prepared to take in promoting gender equity in their classrooms. Any discourses or pedagogic practices which were seen to have their roots in the divine could not be challenged or changed. However, despite this, teachers did find ways to do gender equity work in a context such as Pakistan that is visibly patriarchal and dominated by a regime of religious patriarchy. The thesis thus creates new knowledge about how teachers can challenge discursive practices and work for gender equity from within specific boundaries. It also points to the possibilities of working with children in the future to offer multiple ways of ‘doing’ masculinity and femininity.
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    Quality interactions for mathematics learning: how early childhood teachers enact a suite of play-based mathematics activities with children aged from three to five years
    Cohrssen, Caroline Susan ( 2013)
    The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (EYLF; DEEWR, 2009) requires early childhood educators to implement a play-based curriculum to teach children mathematical ideas in the years before school. Many early childhood educators report anxiety about their own mathematical knowledge and uncertainty about how to go about meeting this requirement of the framework. This implementation study used a mixed-methods, multiple case study approach to investigate how different early childhood educators implemented a packaged suite of play-based mathematics activities with 122 children aged from three to five years. Six early childhood educators agreed to present one activity from the provided suite of activities each day to a small group of children. Data were derived from educators’ self-reported implementation records, semi-structured interviews with participants at three points over a seven-month period, and video-recordings of educators presenting a play-based mathematics activity. Video-recordings were transcribed and analysed using Conversation Analysis. Assessments of pedagogical quality were made at room level and at group level at the start and end of the study. Children were assessed using selected tests of cognitive ability and achievement from the Woodcock-Johnson III at the start and end of the implementation phase. Findings demonstrate that systematic and repeated use of the suite of play-based mathematics activities is associated with teachers’ increased mathematics confidence, and higher quality emotional support and instructional support. Woodcock-Johnson III Concept Formation W scores obtained at the start and end of the seven month-implementation phase show that frequent use of the play-based activities was also associated with a significant increase in children’s learning outcomes. In addition, the systematic and purposeful use of a curriculum (activities, pedagogical strategies and mathematical language) supports the sequential and child-appropriate incorporation of mathematical concepts in an early childhood program. Consistency across settings in quality and frequency of mathematics teaching facilitates a positive and more equitable learning trajectory for all children.