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Emotional Environments for Concept Development and Resilience

Marie D HammerSymposium Presentation at the 17th EECERA Annual Conference, August 2007, Prague.

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• The framework of this paper draws on Vygotsky’s ideas about the consequences of cultural deprivation and emotional neglect and the children he referred to as “the primitives”

• The impact of stress and trauma in young children has been well documented as they develop coping strategies that are often considered anti-social

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• The importance of a supportive emotional environment as fundamental to children’s conceptual development linked with an understanding of children’s play behaviour foregrounds what Vygotsky described as an impairment to psychology that separates the intellectual from the motivational and emotional aspects of thinking

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Conceptual framework

• ‘… the concept of a third space – one that is new, that emerges through cultural encounters and one that cannot be defined in advance.’

» Greenwood, 2001.

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• 3rd space – a meeting of cultures• Intersection of two normative patterns of

interaction• Interconnectedness of language, culture

and learning• Play as a child’s language is a tool to

express self, a tool that transforms thinking.

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Unanswered questions:

• Methodological approaches to identifying & interrogating 3rd space

• bringing post-positivist analytical assumptions to a positivist tool – what can we learn? Is this evil? Is this worthwhile?

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Design and adaptation of tool

• the close relation between the skills or behaviour exhibited by an individual and the contexts of elicitation and practice highlights the importance of the context in which we observe.

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Observations of Children’s Play

• Depressive - Joyful• Anxious - Secure• Angry - Tolerant• Isolated - Integrated• Aggressive - Calm• Egotistical - Pro-social• Oppositional - Co-operative• Dependent - Autonomous

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Social and Emotional well being of aboriginal children

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• A mother supports her child with a cup of tea

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• Two siblings sit with their mother completing simple jigsaw puzzles

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The existence of a 3rd space

• Naturally occurring third spaces• Parent & children claiming third spaces• Non-traditional engagement with

traditional materials

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High level of social competence

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So what?

Empirical concerns• Do these spaces exist? Yes• How are they created?• Tool, even in its positivist form, has led

you to notice…

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Methodological concerns

Is this a valid adaptation of the tool?

Has the researcher moved too far from its philosophical bases?

How does this inform Cultural Historical Theory?

How does this process speak back to positivist ontologies?

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Is this possible?Is this a valid example of appropriation and adaptation of a mediating tool within the research process?

Subject:Researcher Post-positivist Object:

Articulation of3rd space

Outcome:Culturally validSpaces in ECE

Positivist tool:SCBE