Introduction to Professional learning in early childhood settings

This book examines the nature and purposes of professional learning in early childhood settings from post-developmental theoretical perspectives. The aims of the book are modest. Debates about professional learning in non-compulsory educational settings are few in comparison to the growing literature related to educators in schools. So, in order to foster similar debates in early childhood education, we have invited each of the contributors to this book to conceptualise professional learning in relation to changing cultural, social, economic, and technological times, and to describe the ways in which they see these changes intersecting with new perspectives about educators, children, and learning in early childhood education. They have responded with fascinating insights into emerging methodologies of professional learning in prior-to-school settings, through a series of case studies drawn from research and practice in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.