Date of Award
2024
Document Type
Thesis
Publisher
Edith Cowan University
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
School
School of Education
First Supervisor
Lennie Barblett
Second Supervisor
Mindy Blaise
Third Supervisor
Gill Kirk
Abstract
This research explored the Place literacies emerging in Place—children common worlds and the pedagogies generated to support the development of Place literacies. The study was situated on the Gabbiljee wetlands on Noongar Country in Boorloo (Perth), Western Australia and involved the researcher walking-with Place, twenty six- and seven-year-old children and three educators from a local primary school. The aim was to understand how children’s encounters with outdoor environments might be (re)imagined, as opportunities for Place and children to think together to generate new and alternative more-than-human literacies of Place (Place literacies). Whilst this remained a key purpose throughout the study, the initial walks-with Place highlighted the limitations of the researcher and participants’ Western worldview for noticing and responding to Place literacies. Consequently, the researcher set about developing practices for noticing and disrupting the logics that characterise Western ways of thinking and doing. Drawing insights from feminist theories, posthuman literacies and decolonial and anticolonial scholarship, the thesis by publication charts the researcher’s experimentations and development of a suite of twelve practices. These practices created openings for the researcher and educators to notice, respond to and develop Place literacies emerging from situated Place-children encounters. Both methodological and pedagogical, they unsettle Western education’s predilection to separate children from Place and Place from uncomfortable colonial histories. The practices are important for white, settler early childhood educators attending to calls for environmental education to reorientate pedagogies in ways that acknowledge social and ecological justice as always interconnected.
DOI
10.25958/1a3v-6m23
Access Note
Access to this thesis is embargoed until 28th November 2026
Recommended Citation
Nociti, K. (2024). Place literacies emerging from the common worlds of Place and children. Edith Cowan University. https://doi.org/10.25958/1a3v-6m23
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Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons, Elementary Education Commons, Language and Literacy Education Commons