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Curriculum policy and enactment in early childhood education is a political phenomenon that plays out in particular cultural contexts. Comparative lenses to curriculum articulate locally constructed and implicit knowledge to external audiences. In doing so, global commonalities and tensions may become explicit. This paper interrogates curricular documents in Greece and New Zealand using selected questions from Joseph's (2011a) heuristic of 'curriculum as culture'. We do this through writing letters to each other that share our local knowledge and experiences and raise further questions. Although New Zealand and Greece are geographically and culturally two worlds apart, their curricular practices share certain discourses and have both been influenced by international trends. We argue that both countries' documents relate to first-order change where the policy document may not, in itself, update or change prior practices.

Pedagogical documentation is a text of multiple voices and audiences. Building on this idea, the study presented here aimed to explore to what degree and in what ways teachers' writing is shaped or constrained by their anticipation of parents as readers of documentation. Bakhtin's concept of addressivity was used to frame teacher--parent relationships as part of an always present, ongoing dialogue that influences teacher voice and choices in pedagogical documentation. Interviews with teachers and analysis of child portfolios indicate that teachers were aware of parents as an audience, and this awareness was reflected in the discursive practices they use. The discussion of the choices teachers made regarding what to include or not in portfolios puts forward the argument that the development of teacher's voice in pedagogical documentation involves, among other things, an awareness of how self is related to parents. Finding the balance between the self and the other in pedagogical documentation is an issue that needs to be critically addressed in professional learning opportunities.

In this paper, we explore how professional and policy contexts can mediate early childhood teachers' relationship with the official curriculum. Using their assessment practices as an impetus for discussion, we probed 28 Greek kindergarten teachers to talk about their engagement with the prescribed curriculum and explain how they construct its guidelines at the enactment level. As teachers discussed how they negotiated and adapted to curriculum guidelines on assessment, it emerged that their experiences can be better understood in the contexts within which they occurred. Three themes emerged regarding teachers' contexts: the way the curriculum change was introduced back in 2003, the role teachers' professional contexts played in teachers' effort to make sense of the new curriculum and the permissive policy context Greek kindergarten teachers operate in. The findings provide insight for policymakers, teacher professional development and research.

Over the past years, Greece has been undergoing a severe financial crisis. The main purpose of this study was to examine how early childhood teachers perceive continuing professional development (CPD) under such societal turmoil. More specifically, this study examined the perceptions of 45 in-service kindergarten teachers attending the 'Didaskaleio' training institute. Results showed that although Greek early educators express a positive attitude towards CPD, there are certain contradictions in their views regarding the way they perceive CPD and their expectations regarding CPD activities. Results indirectly reflect the changing context, the systemic weaknesses and the antinomies of Greek early childhood education.

Graphic organizers such as webs, time lines, Venn diagrams, flowcharts, and concept maps are well known and widely used instructional and learning tools. They help teachers and students not only to identify and visually represent their views and knowledge but also to recognize and depict relationships among concepts. This article discusses the use of concept maps in early childhood education. In light of a theory that suggests that information is processed and stored in memory in both linguistic and visual forms, it is argued that concept maps can be used in early childhood classrooms to help children organize and spatially represent both what they know and what they are thinking. Once children learn how to "read" and make concept maps, teachers can also use them to identify children's preexisting knowledge or misconceptions as well as use them as an evaluation tool. The article also considers the role of concept maps in teacher planning. Concept maps can help teachers to plan, structure, and sequence the content of their teaching. Finally, the article illustrates some of the issues involved in using concept maps with preschool children and suggests ways of introducing children to the process of constructing their own concept maps.

Collaborating with parents in documenting and reflecting on children's learning is important not only because it provides teachers with richer and more accurate information but also because it helps parents understand the role assessment can play in student learning and motivation. Moreover, when parents are provided with opportunities to observe, record, and reflect on their children's learning they are able both to see the "acts and products" of learning and to appreciate their child's progress, efforts, successes, and achievements over time. The study presented took place in three Greek kindergartens and was carried out to evaluate the results of an intervention program which was designed to encourage parents of preschool children to (a) observe and record their children's learning and progress and (b) reflect on the process of documentation. The documentation took the form of an Observation Sheet which asked parents to record their child's progress in two areas of development, a Reflection Questionnaire, and a diary designed by the researchers for capturing children's words, thoughts, and perspectives. Although conducted locally, we believe that the study adds to our understanding of parent involvement in documentation and how it can be better organized. The results suggest that parents (a) welcome the opportunity to observe and assess their child and share their observations with the teacher and (b) are willing to communicate with teachers in writing if they can 'see' for themselves the value of what they are asked to do.

In early childhood education, opportunities for developing children's thinking skills are unlimited. One of the most effective teaching strategies for this purpose is open-ended questioning. The study presented here aimed to explore the degree to which Greek early childhood teachers promote the development of thinking skills in their pupils. Data were collected by presenting teachers with five hypothetical teaching situations and asking them to write down the learning goals they would set for children in each situation and the questions they would ask in order to achieve these goals. The questionnaire was given to 110 early childhood teachers during a professional development course offered by Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, between 2010 and 2012. Data analysis suggests that the majority of teacher questions are at the recall level and guide children to focus their attention to declarative knowledge instead of procedural knowledge. The cases in which teachers picked up on and supported children's actions with the purpose of enriching their experience and extending their thinking skills were alarmingly few. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings for teacher training.

The article develops an argument about the role parents can play in teaching preschool children to generate their own questions. Informing parents about the importance of questions for learning, and giving them the chance to practice their use, has benefits for children and parents. Using shared reading between children and their parents as an intervention context, this study aimed to not only inform parents about questioning but also help them serve as models for children's questions. Data were collected through a questionnaire to parents, interviews with parents and children, and observation of children's questioning behavior in the classroom. The results suggest that parent questioning behavior can affect the frequency and the types of questions children ask by serving as a model for them. The intervention also provided parents with the opportunity to view for themselves the benefits of question asking for children's thinking and learning and to reflect on their questioning style. (Contains 2 figures.)

The purpose of this paper is to make the case for organising teaching and learning in early childhood education around concepts and generalisations rather than inert facts. It is now widely accepted that facts alone are not enough to help children discern patterns and relationships, group things together, see big ideas and solve problems. Facts need to be placed in a conceptual framework to be understood and remembered. Teachers can facilitate concept development by putting concepts and generalisations (rather than facts) at the centre of activities, providing children with a wide variety of tangible experiences, helping them learn how to observe and represent what they see and hear and providing them with multiple examples of the concepts being taught.

In the past ten years, the issue of inclusion has proved one of the biggest challenges facing special needs education planners and policy-makers in developed countries. Greek educational policy has given emphasis on two points: (a) the development of new organizational structures (i.e. resource rooms, support teachers), and (b) the implementation of administrative regulations that enable mainstreaming special and ordinary education into a unified educational system (inclusion). In doing so, the content of the curriculum and the pedagogical characteristics of the educational environment were ignored. This paper reports the results of a pilot study that aimed to explore the pedagogical aspects of inclusion and integration as implemented in Greek nursery schools. More specifically, the study investigated the way special needs children participate in the learning process and their relationship with the other members of the classroom. The following hypothesis guided the study: the process of school integration of a special needs child is regulated by (a) the degree and the quality of his/her participation in the learning process, and (b) the pupil's ability to comply with the main rules of the classroom. Data were gathered from two special needs children, their teachers and their parents through observations and interviews. Research findings seemed to reinforce the two criteria of the research hypothesis. As observation revealed, children's actions diverged from the desired joint activity. According to research in social groups, this diversion influences the meaning classroom members attribute to "differences" and causes a negative effect on children's membership of the group. At the same time, the study points out crucial dimensions of the above criteria, particularly as regards the attitude of nursery teachers and of the other pupils towards children with special needs, an issue that needs to be further explored.

Curriculum policy and enactment in early childhood education is a political phenomenon that plays out in particular cultural contexts. Comparative lenses to curriculum articulate locally constructed and implicit knowledge to external audiences. In doing so, global commonalities and tensions may become explicit. This paper interrogates curricular documents in Greece and New Zealand using selected questions from Joseph's (2011a) heuristic of 'curriculum as culture'. We do this through writing letters to each other that share our local knowledge and experiences and raise further questions. Although New Zealand and Greece are geographically and culturally two worlds apart, their curricular practices share certain discourses and have both been influenced by international trends. We argue that both countries' documents relate to first-order change where the policy document may not, in itself, update or change prior practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article develops an argument about the role parents can play in teaching preschool children to generate their own questions. Informing parents about the importance of questions for learning, and [...]

In this paper, we explore how professional and policy contexts can mediate early childhood teachers' relationship with the official curriculum. Using their assessment practices as an impetus for discussion, we probed 28 Greek kindergarten teachers to talk about their engagement with the prescribed curriculum and explain how they construct its guidelines at the enactment level. As teachers discussed how they negotiated and adapted to curriculum guidelines on assessment, it emerged that their experiences can be better understood in the contexts within which they occurred. Three themes emerged regarding teachers' contexts: the way the curriculum change was introduced back in 2003, the role teachers' professional contexts played in teachers' effort to make sense of the new curriculum and the permissive policy context Greek kindergarten teachers operate in. The findings provide insight for policymakers, teacher professional development and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Graphic organizers such as webs, time lines, Venn diagrams, flowcharts, and concept maps are well known and widely used instructional and learning tools. They help teachers and students not […]

Over the past years, Greece has been undergoing a severe financial crisis. The main purpose of this study was to examine how early childhood teachers perceive continuing professional development (CPD) under such societal turmoil. More specifically, this study examined the perceptions of 45 in-service kindergarten teachers attending the ‘Didaskaleio’ training institute. Results showed that although Greek early educators express a positive attitude towards CPD, there are certain contradictions in their views regarding the way they perceive CPD and their expectations regarding CPD activities. Results indirectly reflect the changing context, the systemic weaknesses and the antinomies of Greek early childhood education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past ten years, the issue of inclusion has proved one of the biggest challenges facing special needs education planners and policy‐makers in developed countries. Greek educational policy has given emphasis on two points: (a) the development of new organizational structures (i.e. resource rooms, support teachers), and (b) the implementation of administrative regulations that enable mainstreaming special and ordinary education into a unified educational system (inclusion). In doing so, the content of the curriculum and the pedagogical characteristics of the educational environment were ignored. This paper reports the results of a pilot study that aimed to explore the pedagogical aspects of inclusion and integration as implemented in Greek nursery schools. More specifically, the study investigated the way special needs children participate in the learning process and their relationship with the other members of the classroom. The following hypothesis guided the study: the process of school integration of a special needs child is regulated by (a) the degree and the quality of his/her participation in the learning process, and (b) the pupil’s ability to comply with the main rules of the classroom. Data were gathered from two special needs children, their teachers and their parents through observations and interviews. Research findings seemed to reinforce the two criteria of the research hypothesis. As observation revealed, children’s actions diverged from the desired joint activity. According to research in social groups, this diversion influences the meaning classroom members attribute to ‘differences’ and causes a negative effect on children’s membership of the group. At the same time, the study points out crucial dimensions of the above criteria, particularly as regards the attitude of nursery teachers and of the other pupils towards children with special needs, an issue that needs to be further explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]