Theoretical transitions and professional learning: how do early childhood teachers understand sociocultural theory?

In recent years, early childhood education has increasingly drawn on sociocultural explanations for learning and development to inform discussion surrounding curriculum and practice. Theoretically, such discussion has provided a means of addressing critiques levelled at the use of the historically dominant developmental-constructivist approach. How this debate plays out in practice and how teachers engage in the transition from developmental to sociocultural theory as an informant to their practice represents an important and emerging area of research. This paper reports the findings from a project aimed at determining teachers' understandings of sociocultural theory in relation to their practice and their existing interpretations of children's development and learning. Situated within the professional learning literature, the project found that teachers understood sociocultural theory as either confirming their existing beliefs, as deepening their understandings of children's development or significantly challenging their existing beliefs and practices. Critically, how teachers understand sociocultural theory holds implications for the extent to which the theory is adequately implemented in practice as a theoretical informant in its own right rather than being assimilated to the discourse of developmental-constructivism.