Relational approach to infant-teacher lap interactions during the transition from home to early childhood education and care
The transition from home care to early childhood education and care (ECEC) is a period of intense change and development in young children's socio-spatial worlds. This article focuses on infant–teacher lap interactions during this transition period. This investigation applies a relational approach to the study of infant–teacher lap interactions. In doing so, it highlights the inherently social and contextual nature of interaction. From a relational perspective, actors, context, and situation are seen as constitutive of each other, and their interrelationality is considered central to the emergence of interactions. The data, regarding infants' first months attending ECEC in Finland, is compo…
Negotiating Ethics-in-Action in a Long-term Research Relationship with a Young Child
AbstractThis article continues the discussions of relational ethics put forward in Human Arenas in “Arena of Ethics” (Hilppö et al., 2019). Our aim in this article is to explore and discuss relational ethics, as ethics-in-action, in a long-term research relationship with a child. Our question is: How is ethics-in-action negotiated during critical incidents in the construction of a research space that involves a long-term research relationship with a young child? This article is based on a research project that focused on children’s transitions in early childhood education and care (ECEC). These transitions include the transition from home care to ECEC as well as transitions from child group…
Exploring responsive mathematics teaching
Responsive mathematics teaching places students’ ideas and scientific thinking in a central position. It is based upon the expectation that students have resourceful scientific thinking. The responsive teacher advances the acquisition of mathematical knowledge by pursuing the substance of students’ ideas and fostering the practices of the mathematical community. This study focuses on illustrating the responsive mathematics teaching accounts of a second graders teacher. To fulfil this aim, the teaching structure of one teacher has been thoroughly scrutinized and presented in detail. The data, collected through a semi structured interview, classroom observation and field notes, has been analy…