Our early years work

Project start: May 2024

Researchers:

• Lynn McNair
• Jayne White
• Bridgette Redder
• Caroline Guard

This research aims to determine what happens when locally relevant pedagogies are dialogised across culturally diverse sites. We are interested in finding out about the potential for the transcultural perspectives of practitioners / teachers on pedagogies to enhance the educational experiences of 2 -5 years-old children. The information from this study will support practitioners / teachers to apply pedagogical understanding to their practice, benefitting from the insights of others through dialogue.

This three-year programme aims to strengthen and deepen child and community-centred early years practice across Scotland, based on the foundational principles of Friedrich Froebel.

Our vision is of a world where children’s integrity, interdependence and creativity are recognised and cultivated as an indispensable life force in all human societies. Specifically, we want to see children – supported by skilful childhood practitioners – widely and confidently sharing their co-created knowledge, ideas and practices – to inspire and enhance social justice, in harmony with the natural world. 

We want to spark a long-term, national learning journey – spearheaded by ELC practitioners-as-researchers and change makers – that will bring the inexhaustible value of Froebelian ideas into mainstream policy and practice for the twenty-first century. Our hope is that within five years Scotland will be recognised as a beacon of childhood practice at the heart of an international community of Froebelians.

Froebelian Futures is a partnership with Cowgate Under 5s and the University of Edinburgh.

Programme Director and Co-Director:

• Dr Lynn McNair
• Simon Bateson

Other University of Edinburgh members are:

• Luke Addison
• Catriona Gill
• Dr Kristina Konstantoni
• Dr Marlies Kustatscher
• Dr Maggie Morrison
• ProfessorJohn Ravenscroft
• Jane Whinnet

Visit the Froebelian Futures website  

A project exploring the potential of Froebelian principles in new environments, like play cafés, to provide opportunities for high-quality learning and education in informal settings.

Despite emerging research and evidence that focuses on public spaces as informal learning sites, there is still a gap in our understanding of how very young children experience public or semi-public play and social spaces like play cafés and other types of community and business family spaces. There is also an evident need to incorporate young children’s perspectives in the design of play and social spaces.

This project builds on the work of two successfully funded projects:

1. that explored young children’s everyday lives and the realisation of their rights in times of crisis in Greece
2. that explored family and staff experiences of play cafés in Scotland and Germany

This project responded to priorities identified by children (0-8) and their families linked to:

• inequalities that children faced accessing and playing in public spaces, like community and business cafes
• the lack of high-quality play spaces for children and social spaces for families in informal public learning environments

Building on the second project, which mainly focused on parent and staff perspectives, this project focuses on young children’s experiences and perspectives of play café spaces and includes a larger number of diverse families and staff.  The project also includes the perspectives of children and families that may also face barriers in accessing public play spaces. 

Participating researchers

• Professor Kay Tisdall
• Dr Kristina Konstantoni (Co-I)
• Dr Lynn McNair (Co-I)
• Professor John Ravenscroft (Co-I)
• Dr Marlies Kustatscher (Co-I)
• Dr Debi Fry (Co-I)

with partners from:

• Brazil
• Eswatini
• South Africa
• Palestine

The project

This is an international research project which aims to identify and develop safe, inclusive participative pedagogy that can be implemented in fragile contexts and is sustainable for governments, communities and families. The project is undertaken with partners in Brazil, Eswatini, Palestine, South Africa and Scotland using a mixed-method approach. This includes:

• qualitative community case studies in each country
• policy and systems analysis at country and community levels
• developing the economic case for safe inclusive pedagogy

Community engagement and participation underpin the project, where children and their families play an integral role and there is a strong focus on knowledge exchange and collaborative learning.

This project created a radical new public space which inclusively combined play, seminars, workshops and community development through a week-long pop-up play café festival. The work built on previously funded research projects linked to young children’s rights and play café spaces in Greece, Scotland and Germany, and a previous one-day pop-up play café (Fire Starter Festival). Interfacing research findings, knowledge exchange and community engagement, the project co-produced a new multimodal resource to provoke and develop new ideas and audiences, linked long-term to the establishment of a multi-partnership research-policy-practice early years centre.

This was a community engagement event which also included research to explore children and families’ experiences and perspectives about play café . A growing number of community and business play spaces seek to provide ‘child-friendly’ spaces. To what extent are these adult designed spaces relevant for young children and their families, and constitute environments that promote children’s rights and high quality education and learning?

This projects highlights an action research project that sparked transformation regarding how early years practitioners documented children’s learning.  The knowledge gained from this small action research project took place in one Scottish early years setting. The study was stimulated by the early years practitioners of the setting, who strongly opposed the ‘reductionist’ formal ‘tick-box’ assessments produced by their local authority. These types of didactic formal assessments suggest that pedagogy is underpinned by a desire to tame, predict, prepare, supervise and evaluate learning.