Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Title

Professional Development in Education

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

School

School of Education

RAS ID

32670

Comments

Giamminuti, S., Merewether, J., & Blaise, M. (2021). Aesthetic-ethical-political movements in professional learning: Encounters with feminist new materialisms and Reggio Emilia in early childhood research. Professional Development in Education, 47(2-3), 436-448. https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2020.1862277

Abstract

© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Professional learning is considered essential for early childhood teachers, and is frequently associated with childhood outcomes and dominant constructs of quality which perpetuate neoliberal ideals and position early childhood teachers within a framework of rationality, privileging discourses of masculinity and power. By engaging with feminist new materialist perspectives, with the concept of ‘movement’, and with the theory-practice of the educational project of the city of Reggio Emilia, Italy, this paper extends understandings of professional learning to include nonhuman others as worthy interlocutors, and puts forth an invitation to welcome unease and an aesthetic-ethical-political stance in early childhood education. To complicate normative conceptions of professional learning, fragments from a project that used pedagogical documentation and dialogue to transform children’s relations with waste are presented. These fragments elucidate how professional learning in early childhood education might be aesthetically-ethically-politically conceptually grounded and practiced. The conclusions presented are neither simple nor linear; rather invitations are offered to problematise, to avoid being satisfied with overt, dominant and linear constructs, and to welcome uncertainty in worldly relations.

DOI

10.1080/19415257.2020.1862277

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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