ESRI hosts international conference on Early Childhood

The 3 Rs Conference: Reviewing, Renegotiating and Reframing Early Childhood 21 – 22 June 2007

Keynote Speakers:

Gaile Cannella Arizona State University, US
Susan Grieshaber Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Nicola Yelland Victoria University, Australia

The Educational and Social Research Institute (ESRI) was exceptionally pleased to host the 3Rs conference: Reviewing, Renegotiating and Reframing Early Childhood at the Didsbury campus. In addition to representatives from the UK there were also delegates from Norway, Iceland, Australia and the United States.

At the core of the conference was the notion that early childhood matters and it matters because it has the potential to make the lives of young children and their families better. Clearly this raised numerous questions including what is meant by ‘better’ and how such judgements are made. Throughout the proceedings there was intensive and productive debates around the key themes of the conference. In all, the conference provided an opportunity to review past and more recent developments within the field of early years so as to count the costs as well as the benefits of (so-called) ‘progress’. Because of our mutual interdependence the future of early years education – and here education was used in its broadest sense – was considered a global imperative. So a question such as ‘what kind of lives do young children deserve?’ was posed in a forum that recognised that we are morally as well as economically and electronically interrelated.

A book based on the conference will be published at a later date.

THE CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
Wednesday 20th June:

9.30 am - 10.00 am Registration and coffee
10.00 am - 10. 30 am Welcome and Introduction to the conference: Lesley Abbott, Liz Jones and Maggie MacLure
10.30 am - 11.15 am Keynote Address: Gaile Cannella ‘Rethinking the “Disciplinary Fields” of “Childhood” from within an Anti-Colonial, Critical Social Science’
11.15 am - 11 30 am Questions from the floor
11.30 am - 11.45 am Coffee
11. 45 am - 1.00 pm Group discussions located around a number of critical questions
1.00 pm - 2.00 pm Lunch
2.00 pm - 3.30 pm Group discussions
3.30 pm - 3.45 pm Tea
3.45 pm - 4. 30 pm Plenary

Conference Dinner (Wednesday)): Petra Middle Eastern Restaurant

Thursday 21st June:

9.30 am - 10. 00 am Coffee
10.00 am - 10.45 am Keynote Address: Nicola Yelland ‘Reviewing, renegotiating and reframing pedagogies for contemporary times’
10.45 am - 11.00 am Questions from the floor
11.00 am - 11.15 am Coffee
11.15 am - 1.00 pm Group discussions
1.00 pm - 2.00 pm Lunch
2.00 pm - 2.45 pm Keynote Address: Susan Grieshaber‘Irony, Risks and Reality’
2.45 pm - 3.00 pm Questions from the floor
3.00 pm - 3.15 pm Tea
3.15 pm - 4.00 pm Plenary

The Keynote Speakers

Gaile Cannella is Professor of Education at Arizona State University. In addition to a range of articles and book chapters, her books include Deconstructing Early Childhood Education: Social Justice and Revolution, Kidworld: Childhood Studies, Global Perspectives, and Education, edited with Joe Kincheloe, and Embracing Identities in Early Childhood Education: Diversity and Possibilities, edited with Susan Grieshaber. Most recently, she has published Childhood and Postcolonization: Power, Education, and Contemporary Practice with Radhika Viruru. Her work uses feminist theories, poststructuralism, and postcolonial scholarship to examine contemporary critical issues in the field of early childhood education, as well as a current interest that focuses on critical qualitative research, ethical practices in research, and knowledge construction in higher education. This work can be found in two special issues of the journal Qualitative Inquiry titled Dangerous Discourses, and in a forthcoming issue titled Predatory Ethics.

Nicola Yelland is Professor of Education in the School of Education at Victoria University. In the past decade she has been the chief investigator of 10 Australian Research Council funded projects, which have been concerned with rethinking curriculum and pedagogies with new technologies. This has involved working in varied school contexts in both the States and Territories, with teachers and children to explore the ways in which learning in the 21st century can not only lead to improved outcomes but also be relevant to the lives of young people growing up in the information age. She is currently engaged in a major evaluation of the Partnerships in Learning project for the Microsoft Corporation with Professor Mary Kalantzis, which will take place with all States and Territory Authorities over the next 5 years.

Sue Grieshaber currently works at Queensland University of Technology as Professor of Early Childhood Education. Her research interests include early childhood curriculum, policy, gender and families, with a focus on equity and diversity. She has published widely in a range of areas that reflect her research interests and co-edits with Nicola Yelland the international, refereed online journal Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood. She is also on the editorial board of the Australian Journal of Early Childhood and is a consulting editor for Early Childhood Research Quarterly. Sue has interests in a variety of theoretical perspectives including critical, feminist and postmodern theories and uses these in her research and teaching. She has strong international links and has taught, published and presented with a variety of colleagues from overseas universities.