Philosophy of Early Childhood Education

Sandy Farquhar is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. She is currently lecturing in early childhood curriculum and professional studies.

Since well before the Enlightenment theorists have been philosophizing about how best to educate children. Across the Western world intensified government involvement suggests that the arena of early childhood education has taken on greater social, political, and economic significance. Philosophy of Early Childhood Education: Transforming Narratives offers a sobering and insightful critical analysis of the many competing and conflicting theories of early childhood education.

Editorial (Michael A. Peters, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). Introduction (Sandy Farquhar, University of Aukland) and Peter Fitzsimons, University of Aukland). 1. Meetings Across the Paradigmatic Divide (Peter Moss, Institute of Education, University of London). 2. The Gift Paradigm in Early Childhood Education (Genevieve Vaughan, Austin, Texas and Eila Estola, University of Oulu). 3. Conceptions of the Self in Early Childhood: Territorializing identities (Liselott Borgnon, Institute of Education, Stockholm). 4. Deconstructing and Transgressing the Theory - Practice dichotomy in early childhood education (Hillevi Lenz Taguchi, Institute of Education, Stockholm). 5. In Early Childhood: What's language about? (Liane Mozere). 6. The Politics of Processes and Products in Education: An early childhood metanarrative crisis? (Andrew Gibbons, New Zealand Tertiary College, Aukland). 7. (Re)Positioning the Child in the Policy/Politics of Early Childhood (Christine Woodrow, University of Western Sydney and Frances Press, Charles Sturt University). Notes on Contributors. Index.