The Influence of Theorists and Pioneers on Early Childhood Education

Roy Evans, Olivia N. Saracho, Roy Evans, Olivia N. Saracho

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780367636746
• eBook ISBN: 9781000542530
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The chapters in this book reflect on the major shifts in the views of early childhood thinkers and educators, who have contributed to contemporary theoretical frameworks pertaining to early childhood learning. The book also revisits and critically analyses the influence of developmental theories on early childhood education, starting in the 1890s with the work of G. Stanley Hall that established the close association of early childhood education and child development. Several chapters comprise critical examinations of the fundamental influence of thinkers such as Piaget, Vygotsky, Kohlberg, Adler, Pestalozzi, Froebel, and so on, on early childhood learning. The book also contends that these theoretical conceptions of child development have heavily influenced modern views of early childhood education.

This book is a significant new contribution to early childhood learning, and will be a great resource for academics, researchers, and advanced students of Education, Public Policy, History of Education, Psychology, and Sociology.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Early Child Development and Care.

Part I
Developmental Theories in Early Childhood Education

Theorists and their developmental theories

Olivia N. Saracho

and Roy Evans

ABSTRACT

Major developmental theories been a resource to early childhood education researchers and educators. They help to explain how child development unfolds, sources of vulnerability and protection that influences child development, and how the course of development may be altered by prevention and intervention efforts. Understanding factors which may support or compromise development and integrating this knowledge into their work with children and their families are key to supporting healthy developmental outcomes and creating trusting partnerships with caregivers.

Theories of development

Theories of development offer a structure for considering how individuals develop and learn from birth to adulthood. Knowledge of these theories can offer a valuable understanding of child development including the children’s cognitive, emotional, physical, social, and educational development from birth to adulthood. Many scientists, philosophers, and theorists consider that theories create everlasting certainties about individuals when they are used to guide reasonable methods of teaching and inquiry.

Valid and reliable forms of inquiry rely on theories that integrate the researchers’ empirical work to existing knowledge about how to describe, explain, and enhance inter- and intra-individual differences (Lerner & Callina, 2013). Thus, theory guides the researchers’ methodological preferences, which can include quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods. These forms of inquiry contribute to knowledge involving three realms: theory, research, and practice. According to Saracho (2020b), ‘although these spheres often seem independent of one another, they are interrelated. The process of knowledge generation is cyclical, rather than being deductive (top down) or linear (one step always follows another). The forms all overlap. The process usually begins with a problem or issue that needs to be studied through research; this research is driven by theory and practice. The results also contribute to theory and practice, which then provide directions for future research studies. This cyclical process is presented in Figure 1 (Saracho (2020b, p. 2).

Figure 1 Interaction Process (Saracho, 2020, p. 2).

Saracho (2020b) adds that, ‘By using knowledge generated in the past along with knowledge that is being generated in the contemporary scene, we can best understand early childhood education and serve the teachers and children who engage in it’ (p. 2). Recognizably really ‘stand on the shoulders of giants’ (Spodek & Saracho, 2003), that is the theorists. For the purpose of this issue only the theorists who are described in the issue will be discussed.

The developmental theorists discussed in this issue are Jean Piaget, Lev S. Vygotsky, Lawrence Kohlberg, Urie Bronfenbrenner, Burrhus Frederic Skinner, Erik Homburger Erikson, Bruno Bettelheim, and Alfred Adler. Therefore, this section provides an overview of theories.

Each theory provides interpretations on the meaning of children's development and behaviour. While the theories are grouped together into schools of thought, there are variations within each school. All of the above theorists have valid views that can be useful to consider. Many professionals in children's services believe in taking an eclectic approach to theory. By understanding each theoretical approach, researchers and educators can use parts of the theory, such as the context and the situation need to be appropriate to provide further understanding.

Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development theory

Cognitive development refers to the children’s development in the way they process information and acquire their intelligence, perception, and language abilities, which foster the children’s well-being throughout the lifespan and cultivate their cognitive abilities (Tana, Gongb, & Tsang, 2021). It is characterized as the development of the ability to be aware to know, understand, and communicate their understanding. Thus, cognitive development describes the way individuals understand and think about their world. They use their reasoning, intelligence, language, and memory. The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget reinforced the present knowledge on cognition and had a leading influence in establishing the theory of cognitive development.

During the twentieth century, Jean Piaget’s theory had an impact on the individuals’ cognitive development. In the first part of the twenty-first century, Piaget continues to be a source for most studies in cognitive development. His concepts continue to initiate innovative perspectives. In ‘Revisiting Piaget, His Contribution to South African Early Childhood Education,’ Ina Joubert and Giulietta Domenica Harrison discussed the importance of a Piagetian theory in South African early childhood and teacher education practices although their implementation of teaching and learning challenged Piaget’s theory. However, they stated that there is some relevant and current literature within the South African context that pertains to Piaget and his theories of learning. They go through the South African perspectives and implementation of his theories. The authors reported that recently Piaget has received much less attention in the South African because Vygotsky’s (1978) work has been preferred (West, Joubert, & Du Preez, 2020).

Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of cognitive development

Sociocultural theory focuses on the interaction between the individuals and the culture in their environment. It indicates that human learning is mainly a social process. In the early twentieth century, Lev Semenovich Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist, developed this theory that claimed that cognitive development in early childhood is enhanced through social interaction with others. He has been a groundbreaking theorist in establishing concepts concerning the children’s cognitive development, interactionism, and sociocultural theory, among others. That is, children become social learners before becoming cognitive thinkers who construct knowledge.

Vygotsky’s greatest contribution is his concept of Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) relating to the children’s cognitive development when they are able to perform by themselves. In this zone, children can perform with the help of more developed thinkers. These are a type of scaffolding that permit children to function and learn new proficiencies, which become part of the children's repertoires. Therefore, learning guides development instead of following it. He has influenced educational theories, specifically language and literacy education.

Although less known, Vygotsky has influenced the complexity theory. Jörg (2011) describes in his book, New Thinking in Complexity for the Social Sciences and Humanities, how Vygotsky influenced his writing and stated that Vygotsky may be considered ‘one of the first thinkers in complexity’ (p. 14). Vygotsky (1986) believed that there was a methodological crisis in psychology; therefore, he stressed the need for a ‘new science’, similar to the Kuhnian paradigm shift which Kuhn (1962) described in his well-known book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, to establish a new theory or paradigm.

Even though Vygotsky was interested in the development of consciousness, self-regulation, and abstract thought among children (Kirshner & Kellogg, 2009), he challenged linear causality, and defended the idea of the transcendence of individual learning to focus on the generative possibility of learning through social interactions. In this sense, learning and development was a function of interaction, emergence, and self-organization, which are dominant ideas of complexity in a context of epistemological crisis in language studies (Robillard, 2008). In ‘Continuing the Heritage of Vygotsky as a Complexivist: Insights from a Research Project Among Pre-primary Learners in Mauritius,’ Shameem Oozeerally and Helina Hookoomsing present the findings of a research project, that was conducted in 2016-2017, which explored and modelled the language ‘experienciations’ (Engel, 2013) of early childhood learners in 13 pre-primary schools in the multilingual island of Mauritius. A complexity case-study research design (Hetherington, 2013) was used to approach the field. The findings of the project present the ways in which the young learners integrate environmental, contextual and linguistic complexity in their own personal, yet socio-collective trajectories of learning. The results showed that they were able to navigate linguistic complexities of their multilingual education systems, to construct their own learning. The project put forward recommendations for the consideration of the complex linguistic multiplicity of children and their settings in the early childhood curriculum and teacher-education courses of Mauritius.

Societies have become more conscious of the importance of early socio-emotional skills for children’s later success. In ‘Vygotsky’s Contributions to Understandings of Emotional Development through Early Childhood Play,’ Yeshe Colliver and Nikolay Veraksa discussed the contributions that Vygotsky and his advocates have made to provide an understanding of the young children’s emotional development. They described how Vygotsky’s developmental theory is formed through play and then proposed an extra social – individual dialectical relationship to explain emotional development. The authors’ model presumed a special role that practitioners need to undertake to enhance the children’s emotional development through play to allow children to understand and experience their perezhivanie¹ at an individual’s level that it goes beyond social to include many cultures (e.g. when anger is admonished). This concept added to the literature on the adult’s active role in educational play.

In the next article, ‘Vygotsky's Theory In-Play: Early Childhood Education,’ Larry Smolucha ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction: Changing Secondhand Economies
• Part I: Developmental Theories in Early Childhood Education
• Part II: Pioneers and their Curriculum Programs
• Index