We invite you to attend the oral presentation of the School of Education PhD candidate, Helen Lane.  Her supervisors are Sophie Alcock and Jenny Ritchie.

Abstract:

This research seeks to consider how young children’s feelings are enabled and constrained in early childhood care and education (ECCE) contexts. Emotions are thought to influence our responses to experiences (Davis & Panksepp, 2018). Behaviour cannot be fully understood without considering feelings or by focusing solely on thoughts and actions. Feelings can arise interactively or intra-actively, and set off reactions which may be experienced in the mind and/or the body (Music, 2015). Highlighting and examining feelings is a way of celebrating rather than marginalising their existence, and this study is based in acknowledgement that feelings are influential in children’s overall well-being and development (O'Loughlin, 2009; Stern, 1985).

This ethnographic study will use an intra-active lens and concepts from psychoanalytic theory to  help interpret and discuss feelings. Since this research is situated within Aotearoa, attention will be paid to its colonising history (Orange, 2013) and the ‘bicultural’ context outlined by the early childhood curriculum Te Whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga mō ngā mokopuna o Aotearoa. Early Childhood Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2017a). Data collection will involve observations of individual children and small groups of children, a researcher journal, interviews and conversations with children, parents and teachers as well as analysis of key documents produced by the Ministry of Education and the Education Review Office that are pertinent to emotional care of children including in particular the recently released He Māpuna te Tamaiti (Ministry of Education, 2019).

Please arrive on time, to avoid disruption for the presenter and other attendees.