Lived Spaces of Infant-Toddler Education and Care

Foreword.- Prologue: Campus-Toddlers: Observations and Reflections from a "Window Ethnographer".- 1. Introduction: Exploring Lived Spaces of Infant-Toddler Education and Care.- 2. Lived Spaces in a Toddler Group: Application of Lefebvre's Spatial Triad.- 3. Making This My Space: Infants' and Toddlers' Use of Resources to Make a Day Care Setting Their Own.- 4. Babies in Space.- 5. Spending Time with Others: a Time-Use Diary for Infant-Toddler Child Care.- 6. The Birthday Cake: Social Relations and Professional Practices around Mealtimes with Toddlers in Child Care.- 7. Playspaces: Educators, Parents and Toddlers.- 8. Facilitating Intimate and Thoughtful Attention to Infants and Toddlers in Nursery.- 9. Developing 'Professional Love' in Early Childhood Settings.- 10. Observing Infants' and Toddlers' Relationships and Interactions in Group Care.- 11. Guided Participation and Communication Practices in Multilingual Toddler Groups.- 12. Infant Signs Reveal Infant Minds to Early Childhood Professionals.- 13. What Infants Talk About: Comparing Parents' and Educators' Insights.- 14. Expressing, Interpreting and Exchanging Perspectives during Infant-Toddler Social Interactions: The Significance of Acting with Others in Mind.- 15. Infants Initiating Encounters with Peers in Group Care Environments.- 16. A Dialogic Space in Early Childhood Education: Chronotopic Encounters with People, Places and Things.- 17. Lived Spaces of Infant-Toddler Education and Care: Implications for Policy?.- Appendix.

'The strength of this manuscript is the international gathering of studies on infants and toddlers in ECEC, where the children are considered active participants and agents in their own lives. The chapters in the book bring fore both the adults' and the children's perspectives and most valuable are the efforts to bring these perspectives together, presented and discussed in projects and programs conducted in early childhood practices. Methodologies used in the studies described in each chapter welcome a broad spectrum of methods for data collection and analysis. Both quantitative and qualitative ways to present observations are used, which altogether give the reader a comprehensive view of the toddlers' lives in childcare.' -- Camilla Björklund, Department of Education, Communication and Learning, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

'The strongest aspect of the work is the confidence shown in each chapter. The authors have been supported through a process of peer support and dialogue to showcase a specialization. Each contributor takes a specific viewpoint based on well-established theoretical or philosophical perspectives and explores concepts and ideas deeply and in detail in relation to a closely observed interaction or experience from the everyday life of a young child in contemporary early childhood settings.  

The focus on infants and toddlers is always a valuable contribution to a marginalized field in early childhood education. The book would be important for any student, lecturer or researcher who wished to proceed in this field.

This is the kind of book I would use as a lecturer, I would use chapters as readings for students and it would be highly recommended for researchers. It is a book for University Libraries and would be required reading for anyone with a special interest in young children. It is also interesting reading for anyone who wished to extend their understanding of a specific theorist.' --