Beyond Quality in ECE

Two of the international keynote speakers at Convention were Gunilla Dahlberg and Alan Pence, two of the authors of Beyond Quality in Early Childhood Education. I got hold of this book earlier in the year, and have found it very compelling reading.

In a nutshell, the book problematises the notion of quality in current official writing about early education, (and even the prevailing ideas about childhood). This is largely because they have been developed from a Western, and mainly American, viewpoint, and it turns out that these ideas don't work out comfortably when transported into other countries and cultures (or even many groups of minority culture within America and other Western countries). Then, these singular ideas are used to further disenfranchise groups of local decision making, and the ability to determine how to raise their children (for example).

It was very exciting to meet authors I had read 'in the flesh' (so to speak). As it happened, we sat next to these two on the first morning. This is due to my habit of sitting near the front. We got talking, and, as I have thought that some of their ideas worked out very well in the way that Playcentre works (which is currently very non-establishment, in that it's not meeting government agendas either well or willingly), I was able to talk about how their ideas played out in my area.

(Hopefully I didn't bore their ears off!)

(I had a copy of their book in my motel, so later in the week I tracked down Gunnilla and got her to sign it for me. I felt a bit embarrassed about this, but heck, how often do you meet the author of a book you like when you actually have it with you?!)

ps, the pic is of the 1999 edition. I have the 2nd edition, published (and updated) in 2007.