Children and Materialities (eBook)

The Force of the More-than-human in Children’s Classroom Lives

Casey Y. Myers (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2019 | 1st ed. 2019
XII, 245 Seiten
Springer Singapore (Verlag)
978-981-13-8168-3 (ISBN)

Infos

This book makes the case for young children as both keenly materially aware of and highly dependent on sets of interrelated material-discursive circumstances. It argues that long-term engagement with children around the topic of meaning-matter relations upends many taken-for-granted notions of consumption, self-regulation, knowledge production, and what constitutes quality of life within a school setting.

The book provides complex accounts of agency on multiple scales - the capability of children to shape and share research, the force of objects, stuff, and things to impact the 'social' workings of a classroom, and the impact of nonhuman animals on the trajectory of the ways in which children relate to each other.

This work makes a significant contribution to both theoretical conceptions and practical enactments of childhoods, productively addressing the many contradictions inherent in a posthuman and participatory approach to researching with young children. It also offers insights into how the everyday materialities of children's classrooms (and their complex representations) are capable of disrupting the common-sense order of things.

Casey Y. Myers an Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education at Kent State University, Ohio, where she teaches courses focusing on the integration of social studies and expressive arts, the relational elements of teacher practice, theories of child/hoods and the role of the humanities in early years classrooms.  She also serves as the Coordinator of Studio and Research Arts for the Child Development Center, an early years laboratory school on the Kent campus.  Her research interests revolve around the everyday materialities of young children's school lives and the complexities of inquiring into and representing those relations.  She was the inaugural recipient of the Jeanette Rhedding-Jones outstanding dissertation award from the International Reconceptualizing Early Childhood Education organization in 2015. She currently lives in Northeastern Ohio with her husband, son, and various animal companions.

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This book makes the case for young children as both keenly materially aware of and highly dependent on sets of interrelated material-discursive circumstances. It argues that long-term engagement with children around the topic of meaning-matter relations upends many taken-for-granted notions of consumption, self-regulation, knowledge production, and what constitutes quality of life within a school setting.The book provides complex accounts of agency on multiple scales - the capability of children to shape and share research, the force of objects, stuff, and things to impact the "e;social"e; workings of a classroom, and the impact of nonhuman animals on the trajectory of the ways in which children relate to each other.This work makes a significant contribution to both theoretical conceptions and practical enactments of childhoods, productively addressing the many contradictions inherent in a posthuman and participatory approach to researching with young children. It also offers insights into how the everyday materialities of children's classrooms (and their complex representations) are capable of disrupting the common-sense order of things.

Inhalt

Foreword 7
References 9
Contents 11
Introduction 13
1 Prologue: Contradictions 14
Is This Work About Children or Things? Yes 20
Was Your Research Child-Centered or About Decentering the Human? Yes 22
Is This One Book or Two? Yes 24
References 24
The Kindergarten Book 27
2 Contributors 28
3 Assembling 32
Method (Assemblage) 33
Being (With Us) 34
Doing (Photos) 37
Becoming (With Cameras) 42
Ethical Matters 49
Data (Rhizo) Analysis 51
Rendering and Re-presentation 52
References 54
4 Entering 56
Beginning/Middle/Opening 57
Continuing with/in the Cartographies 61
References 66
5 Cartographies 67
“Good” Work 67
Kindergarten Becomes Frozen 67
Window Work, Ice Power, and the Polar Vortex 75
Braid–Tape–Paper Happenings 83
Doing Good Work or Going Underground 93
Becoming Beasts 99
Becoming Crab/Beast 100
Becoming Butterfly 105
Becoming Snake 117
Becoming Bunny 127
Tinythings 138
“It’s not a Choice to Pick at the Salt” 138
“Milkweeds Know How to Fly!” 143
“This Toothhole Won’t Leave Me Alone!” 159
“You Can’t Get the Pointy Crystal in One Picture!” 171
Disability Figures 188
Injured Figures Emerge 189
“Disability Awareness Month” Events 195
Setting Traps: Emergence of Safety Structures and Origin Stories 197
Breaking Loose: Emergence of Mobility 207
Feeling Good: Emergence of Accommodations 217
Kicking Out: Emergence of Exclusion 221
References 228
Afterword 231
6 Afterword: Potentialities 232
Potentialities: Being–Becoming 233
Being–Becoming Differently in Relation to “Consumption” 233
Being–Becoming Differently in Relation to “Regulation” 235
Potentialities: Knowing 237
Knowing Differently Through Material Inquiry 237
“Listening” Differently to What Children Know 242
Potentialities: Getting Along Well Together and Living Well 245
References 249

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 17.6.2019
• Reihe/Serie: Children: Global Posthumanist Perspectives and Materialist Theories
• Reihe/Serie: Children: Global Posthumanist Perspectives and Materialist Theories
• Zusatzinfo: XII, 245 p. 100 illus., 80 illus. in color.
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Psychologie ► Entwicklungspsychologie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Pädagogik ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Pädagogik ► Bildungstheorie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Pädagogik ► Vorschulpädagogik
• Schlagworte: children and animals in early years classrooms • children and media in early years classrooms • listening methodologies with young children • new materialisms in early childhood • new materialist approaches to classroom research • new materialist perspectives on quality • new materialist perspectives on self-regulation • posthuman classroom research with young children • post-qualitative research with young children
• ISBN-10: 981-13-8168-2 / 9811381682
• ISBN-13: 978-981-13-8168-3 / 9789811381683