Written by a team of international contributors and featuring case studies from a range of educational settings in Australia, Denmark, Spain, Sweden, and the USA, this edited book is the first in the field of early childhood and youth studies to draw on Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory to give insights into transitions in childhood, what they are and how they are differently experienced.
Transitions are explored holistically so the chapters not only focus on the person transitioning but also the institutions in which the person is transitioning from and to, with a focus on schools and daycare. The contributors look at how societal values and policies impact these transitions and comparison are drawn between international settings. The book includes chapters on expatriate families, immigrant children, home-school transitions, the role of play and communities. Through interviews, case studies and the analysis of empirical material from fieldwork, Children's Transitions in Everyday Life and Institutions reflects on the best ways to engage children so that they may emerge as competent actors in their new settings and transition well.
1. Children's Transitions in Everyday Life across Institutions: New Conceptions and Understandings of Transitions, Mariane Hedegaard and Marilyn Fleer
Part I: Societal Trajectories: Children's Life Courses
2. Play and Life Competencies as Core in Transition from Kindergarten to School: Tension between Values in Early Childhood Education, Mariane Hedegaard and Kasper Munk
3. Becoming a Schoolchild: A Positive Developmental Crisis, Ditte Winther-Lindqvist
4. Children from Expatriate Families Moving Countries and Entering School Mid Semester: New Entrants Transitioning into Established Practice, Megan Adams and Marilyn Fleer
5. From Play to Learning: Playfulness as a Resource in Children's Transition, Paula Cavada Hrepich
6. Negotiating the Demands and Motives in Primary School Transitions, Judith MacCallum and Veronica Morcom
Part II: Transition between Daily Practices and Everyday Activity Settings
7. Children's Everyday Transitions, Dorte Kousholt
8. "A Darwinist at Our Table?": Discursive Transitions between School and Home, Lucas Gottzén and Karin Aronsson
9. Children and Teachers' Transitioning in Playworlds: The Contradiction between Real Relations and Play Relations as a Source of Children's Development, Marilyn Fleer
10. Transition between Children's Play and Teacher Initiated Activities: An Analysis Of Children's Motives and Teachers' Pedagogical Demands in Two Preschools, Anamika Devi, Marilyn Fleer and Liang Li
11. Mapping Imagining through Transitions Within, Between, and from Imaginative Play: Changing Demands as Developmental Opportunities, Jennifer Vadeboncoeur
Index
