Time-Space Travel: Neighbourhood affordances for the networking of knowledge about children’s learning and development AERA 2009, San Diego Space-Time: Contexts of Educational Research Symposium Jennifer Rowsell, Rutgers University Sue Nichols, University of South Australia

Project Team Principal Investigators: Drs. Sue Nichols and Helen Nixon, University of South Australia Partner Investigator: Dr. Jennifer Rowsell, Rutgers Graduate School of Education Researcher: Dr. Sophia Rainbird, University of South Australia

Our Project Mothers’ and fathers’ understanding of how best to foster children’s learning and development (CLD) is a vital element in optimising children’s learning. Our project focuses on how parents and caregivers access the kinds of resources which can assist them to support CLD.

Project Elements Ethnographic Approach (Bloome and Green, 1998) Three sites: 1) small rural community outside of Adelaide; 2) larger suburb outside of Adelaide; 3) suburban, university town in Princeton, NJ. Trend in findings is movement in space and time in terms of educational practices for preschoolers.

Research Questions How do resources circulate through immediate social interactions? How are resources spatially located? * Where do parents go to foster literacy development for their preschoolers? * What is the relationship between movement among pre-school sites and philosophies of educative practice?

Research Design Observation *Parent interviews *Interviews with service providers *Resource inventory & mapping *Parent survey Web-site investigation *Artifact collection *Opportunistic information gathering

Key Concepts  Ecologies: All elements in a system need to be considered in terms of their relationships. Extend focus relationship between home & school to encompass communities and community hubs as educational sites (Good et al 1997, Neuman and Celano 2001). Literacy and Spatiality (Leander & Sheehy, 2004) Perceived space: produced in social practice; conceived space: dominated by ideologies; lived space: space imagination seeks to change (Lefebvre)

Analysis of Time-Space Travel “The in situ storytelling approaches traces on- going and very proactive set of practices whereby organizational participants restory and rehistoricize prior events to reinterpret the meaning of present and anticipated future events.” Boje, 1998 The process of restorying includes reading interview transcripts and understanding partial stories to understand lived experiences.

SPACE TIME DomesticNeighbourhood VirtualGlobal Recent Child’s Past Parent Past Future Space-Time Narrative Structure

Continuum of Models of Educative Practice   BillMarkCathy Strong structured practice Moderate structured practice Light structured practice Looks backwards to restory his own educative practice Looks at current experiences and situation at shape educative practice Looks outward to existential conditions to shape educative practice More skills basedCombination of osmosis and structure Osmosis model of education

Case Study #1: Bill Bill has a three and half year old He is one of three boys He went to boarding school He wanted to oppose his own educative practice with his daughter, Annabel. Believes in experiential learning rather than using ‘educational tools.’ Activity-based parenting that follows a structure in the day.

… in my teenage years as a kid we didn’t have the money and we didn’t have any organized lessons or anything. Whatever the school offered was how I got into music and sports and such, and having brothers that were older, but had very few formal lessons in anything except for music and it ws provided by the school. So, for me, I quit most of those things in my teenage years … but I don’t recall being pushed by my folks because they weren’t around a lot. Bill

Case Study #2: Mark Mark has three children: 4, 9, 11 His mother is an expert in literacy and has created a phonics program called Eggs. He uses conversation as a learning tool along with some skills development. He does his own research - especially in the area of vocabulary development. Stresses reading to his children because he was not read to as a child. Coach of baseball team

I think we do a good job of just talking to the kids and allowing them to express their opinions, you know, beyond like ‘How was your day at school,’ or whatever, just creating a safe ground upon which for them to express their concerns when they’re not at school which happens usually every night.

Case Study # 3: Cathy Cathy has a two year old and seven year old. Moved to US from Israel at 8 years old. Bilingual parenting Creates literate environment - osmosis model. Exposes children to Princeton Library to immerse them in reading and the space.

I didn’t read until the end of second grade or third grade. I don’t know if it’s because of the language thing where English wasn’t spoken at home. Especially when I was younger like in third grade and younger, there was almost no English in the home.

Discussion