ECSDN 2021 RESEARCH CONFERENCE - SESSION TWO: FRIDAY 26 FEBRUARY
Due to the Coronavirus Pandemic we decided to continue with our Research Conference but to host it online, which has made it more accessible to so many. We also split the presentations and keynotes up into morning sessions and we recorded them so they could be viewed widely.
The recording presentations we have shared below are from the second of our mini conferences and we proud to share them.
Please feel free to download the Conference Abstract from the button on the right
Keynote 1: Professor Eva Lloyd
The Changing Shape of the English Early Years System’
Eva Lloyd is professor of Early Childhood at the University of East London and Director of UEL’s International Centre for the Study of the Mixed Economy of Childcare. She also holds a Visiting Professorship at University College London. With a background in psychology, her research focusses on early childhood education and care policies and systems, particularly marketised systems, and their impact on young children growing up with disadvantage.
She has published widely on these issues for both academic and practitioner audiences. Eva has extensive experience of collaborating with national and international policymakers and is currently advising the Irish Government on the development of a funding model for the Irish ECEC system. In 2013 she received and OBE for services to education.
"In this presentation I explore the implications of the increasing dominance of private sector business in the delivery of early education and childcare to under-fives in England. By comparison, the public sector plays only a relatively minor role within this marketised system, through nursery classes in maintained primaries and maintained nursery schools. This situation poses a threat to the early years sector’s sustainability, which has been amplified by the Covid-19 crisis. Data from a recent research project I worked on highlight potential alternative approaches that may mitigate such childcare market risks."
BLOCK ONE PRESENTATIONS
Julie is a lecturer at Sunderland University and has developed a passion and enthusiasm for early years education through her intervention work with families and within schools. Julie will be presenting some of her PhD research findings which explored two-year-old children's experiences of school readiness. Using a unique analogy of colour Julie’s research (re)tells and (re)presents how the children in her research emerged with agency and autonomy in classroom spaces and events. How and when they emerged is integral to understanding how we can support children's transitions and their wellbeing in settings moving forward. To do this Julie will be sharing what is coined as 'affective intensities' as a provocation to rethink old practices, calling to question what can and should be considered as a 'voice'.
Sian is a third-year undergraduate studying Primary Education and Teaching Studies at Coventry University Scarborough.
"My passion for teaching young children became apparent when I was 15 years old when I began teaching Performing Arts at the dance school I attended. I am currently working as an advanced teaching assistant alongside my degree for further experience and preparation for the start of my PGCE year in September 2021, which I am very looking forward to. My aim in life is to become the best teacher I can be and progressively move up to senior leadership. I am also aiming to eventually be teaching overseas internationally.
My third-year research project in which I will be presenting focuses on poverty within Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and poverty within today's society, discussing links between the two."
ECSDN Funded Research Update: Interim Progress with Research
'The Early Childhood Education and Care sector’s perspective on the Early Childhood Studies graduate and the Graduate Practitioner Competencies'
Dr Nikki Fairchild is the Associate Head (Research and Innovation) in the School of Education and Sociology at the University of Portsmouth. Her research interests include posthumanist and new material feminist ways to enact and extend conceptualisations of professional practice and more-than-human subjectivities in Early Childhood. Her recent research focuses on place-space in classrooms and gardens. This has been enacted using walking-with methodologies where she is become interested in the ways in which place and space impact teachers and practitioners understanding of young children
Eva Mikuska is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Education, Health and Social Science at the University of Chichester, UK. Her work seeks to broaden current views on early childhood education and care in England with the aims to produce a more generative, ethical, and political way to enact ECEC research. Her language skills (native Hungarian, and Serbo-Croat) and her research enables her work to have synergy with a national and international set of ECEC researchers.
Alex Sabine is a Senior Teaching Fellow at the University of Portsmouth, course leader of the BA (Hons) Early Childhood Studies and Co-Chair of the Early Childhood Studies Degrees Network. He is passionate about education and is particularly interested in more creative forms of education which encourage the emergence of true character and ‘Self’ in social structures. His research into teacher well-being dovetails nicely with his professional and personal background in all phases of education and the various experiences of different educational approaches from throughout the world.
Sarah Barton is a Senior Lecture and the University of Portsmouth and course leader of Early Years Initial Teacher Training (EYITT). She has 30 years experience of teaching Early Childhood working is settings, schools and as a lecturer. Her research is focused on early years practitioner development. She routinely works with local and regional providers to identify practical application of contemporary theory as well as seeking to inform the field of research from a practitioner perspective.
BLOCK TWO PRESENTATIONS
Eva Mikuska is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Education, Health and Social Science at the University of Chichester, UK. Her work seeks to broaden current views on early childhood education and care in England with the aims to produce a more generative, ethical, and political way to enact ECEC research. Her language skills (native Hungarian, and Serbo-Croat) and her research enables her work to have synergy with a national and international set of ECEC researchers.
Dr Tehmina Khan works as a senior law lecturer at London Metropolitan University, UK. She is also a qualified solicitor (lawyer, not-practicing) and an independent disciplinary panel member for the Football Association. Her research interests include forced marriage, culture, and teachers’ identities. Recently her research focuses on the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on education in England.
"A lecturer in Early Years and Education at Coventry University Scarborough, I have been involved with early years education, either directly with the children, or in the FE/HE sector for the majority of my working life, before breeding two small people which successfully blew all my theories out of the window. My focus has always been early years practice, and I am currently working with York St John University on a study around the impact of COVID upon the early years sector, looking at parents and practitioners. My doctoral study, which is what I will be presenting on, builds on this area, looking at the impact of cultural trauma on young children. views. Other cultures were understood as different symbolic arenas that did not need to be classified in the original evolutionary sense."
Dr Sandra Lyndon is a senior lecturer at the University of Chichester. She is part of the Early Childhood team and leads and teaches across a range of programmes and modules. Sandra completed her Doctorate of Education at the University of Sussex in January 2019. Her thesis ‘Early years practitioners’ narratives of child poverty’ uses narrative methodology and methods to explore understandings of poverty in early years settings.
Helen Moss is a senior lecturer at the University of Chichester. She is part of the Early Childhood and Social Work Teams and teaches across a range of programmes and modules, with a focus on child development, legal frameworks to promote children's welfare and children's rights. Helen's previous research interests have included communication skills used by social workers in child protection interviews.
Helen and Sandra are co-researchers and they have been working together using a dialogic narrative approach to evaluate the benefits of an intergenerational project between children from a nursery school and their ‘older friends’ from a residential care home. Sandra and Helen are in the process of publishing their research findings.