University of Winchester

Education Studies, Education Studies (Early Childhood)

 ES 2212: Theorising Early Childhood

Tuesdays, 9.00-11.00, SEB 201.

  Module Tutors: Derek Bunyard and Emile Bojesen

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Last updated 06.01.12.

This is a mandatory module for the Early Childhood degree pathway within Education Studies. It is delivered principally as a series of formal lectures, but there are also some seminar activities.  The readings are related to four key texts, and you do need to plan for the time this will take; they are: Locke's essay, entitled 'Some Thoughts on Education', Rousseau's Émile, Piaget's The Principles of Genetic Epistemology, and Vygotsky's Mind in Society.  Web pages associated with each week's lecture will normally be attached to the module outline in advance, but PowerPoints may be added after the lecture.  All of these are intended as aids to further work; they are not intended as substitutes for your own lecture notes.

The central topic underpinning the entire module is what is commonly referred to as the Nature/Nurture debate - we are using this as the central focus for the early years Pathway in Education Studies, so do not be surprised if work that you carry out for this module gets re-interpreted next year in the Level 6 module, Loss of Childhood.  The debate itself comprises a continually growing body of theory and argument that attempts to identify a set of fundamental causes which can be said to 'determine' human nature; and the debate gets its name from these two supposedly opposed sources of causation.  Such a debate provides a general reference point for most theoretical studies of early childhood education because, depending on the conclusions reached, the human child is either thought to be 'plastic' in terms of possible outcomes (the nurture assumption), or relatively fixed in its characteristics - even pre-determined - before its birth (the nature assumption).

Learning Outcomes:

  Show engagement with texts and ideas concerned with the development and the nature/nurture debate
  Show engagement with primary sources
  Show a knowledge of theoretical perspectives and/or works
  Show an understanding of abstract concepts and ideas within theoretical perspectives
  Show an ability to work with theorists and their concepts in various forms of assessment as appropriate

Assessment

There are two assignments for this module, each of which is worth 50% of the overall mark..

First Assignment: an essay of 2000-2500 words.  To be submitted by Tuesday, week 6: return date Tuesday, week 10.

Essay title: 'In what ways do Locke and Rousseau differ in their prescriptions for developing reason in children?'

Select here for the background context for this assignment question - more specific guidance will be given later.

 

Second Assignment: an essay 2 of 2500 words.  To be submitted by Tuesday, week 1 of Semester 2, return date week 4 of semester 2..

Essay title: 'Explain how Vygotsky's interpretation of the learning environment revisits Locke's ideas on the educative capacity of the individual, and how Piaget's understanding of cognitive growth revisits Rousseau's account of the educational importance of Émile's surroundings. '

 

Lecture focus.

First Section Leader: Emile Bojesen

Week 1

         

Introduction: education, rationality, and childhood.

Relevant web search topics: reason, rationality, and causality.

Week 2

          

John Locke - republican sentiments and royalist opportunities. (Locke useful timeline)

Relevant web search topics: Locke - the origin of ideas, empiricism, and the idea of the mind as a tabula rasa

A complete version of Locke’s (1690) Essay Concerning Human Understanding can be found at:

ESSAY

This is BACKGROUND, as far as your own essay is concerned. Read the Introduction and then be bold. (But anything more than chapter 7 will be way beyond the call of duty!) You are advised to focus on his refutation of innate ideas, his notion of empiricism, and what he calls here 'reflection'.

A complete version of Locke's (1693) Some Thoughts Concerning Education can be found at:

THOUGHTS

Here the need is to identify any and all practices that seem designed to promote the development of reason - so you need to include any remarks that Locke makes on the idea of a rational being.

Week 3

          

Locke, part 2.

Education as Nurture.

Week 4

          

Jean-Jacques Rousseau - enlightening the bourgeoisie.

Relevant web search topics: amour de soi, amour-propre, Denis Diderot, the Encyclopédistes, Voltaire - particularly his Candide, the Château de Villandry (a civilised environment?), and David Hume.

Rousseau, J-J. (1993 [1762]) Émile London: Everyman Book II

Rousseau, J-J. (1970 [1762]) The Social Contract London: Everyman

Rousseau, J-J. (1971 [1765]) The Confessions Harmondsworth: Penguin

A web-based version of Émile is available on

Émile

If you have time, find out if Rousseau thought Emile's wife, Sophie, should have a different education

 

Week 5

     

Rousseau, part 2. - Education as Nature.-

On Sophie,

and on Locke & Rousseau.

 

Week 6

          

Review point for the first assignment: Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate - a contemporary account of the Nature/Nurture debate.

Steven Pinker: chalking it up to the blank slate

Pinker, S. (2002) ‘The Official Theory’ in his The Blank Slate London : Allen Lane . 

 

 

Second Section Leader: Derek Bunyard

Week 7

          

 

Introduction to the second half.

Jean Piaget - instinct and ethology.

Suggested topics for web-searches: epistemology, Konrad Lorenz, Niko Tinbergen, ethology, instinct

Piaget Sources - general

And specific; one ; two; three; four.

Useful overview.

Piaget, J. (1953) The Origin of Intelligence in the Child London: Routledge trans: M. Cook pp. 1-9; 407-419

Campbell, R. (2006) Jean Piaget’s Genetic Epistemology: appreciation and critique Revised version of two lectures presented at the Institute of Objectivist Studies Summer Seminar, Charlottesville, VA July 1997

Week 8

          

 

Jean Piaget - schematism and cognition

Suggested topics for web-searches: assimilation, accommodation, equiliberation, and cognitive development. If you are beginning to doubt what you are hearing (and seeing) take a look at Margaret Donaldson's famous work, Children's Minds.

Piaget's developmentalism

Conservation

Bruner, J. (1997) Celebrating Divergence: Piaget and Vygotsky Human Development 40 pp. 63-73

Piaget, J. (1972) The Principles of Genetic Epistemology London: Routledge Kegan Paul trans: Wolfe Mays Ch 1.

Week 9

          

Lev Vygotsky - revolution and educational opportunity.

Useful websites: the first compares Vygotsky and Piaget, the second contains an archive of Vygotsky's texts, and the third is the first of a number of YouTube videos.

First

Second

Video

Vygotsky, L.S. (1994/1930) ‘The Socialist Alteration of Man’ in R. Van der Veer and J. Valsiner  (eds ) (1994) The Vygotsky Reader Oxford: Blackwell.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1994/1934) ‘Academic concepts in school aged children’ in: R. Van der Veer and J. Valsiner (eds) (1994) The Vygotsky Reader Oxford: Blackwell

Week 10

         

Lev Vygotsky - education as a necessary social act.

Marti, E. (1996) 'Mechanisms of internalisation and externalisation of Knowledge in Piaget's and Vygosky's theories' in: Tryphon, A. and Voneche, J. (eds) (1996) Piaget-Vygotsky: The social genesis of thought Hove: Psychology Press

Kitchener, R. (1996) ‘The nature of the social for Piaget and Vygotsky’ Human Development 39 pp. 243-249.

Assignment 2 - guidance notes. Please look at these before next week!

Week 11

Review point for the second assignment.

Early childhood - the wider scientific, economic, and political implications of this module study.

Week 12

         

Looking ahead - the biology of sociality and cognition,

Maturana & Varela's The Tree of Knowledge.

On cognition and media ecology.

The dance.

Varela on consciousness and subjectivity.

 

Bibliography

Ardrey, R. (1977) The Hunting Hypothesis London: Fontana (this text is much commented upon on the web, the library has two of his earlier books that say much the same thing)

Behe, M. (2003) Darwin's Black Box New York: Free Press Association (well written account of some biochemical marvels, but the real point of putting this one in your list is that Behe returns us to the Argument by Design - none of the marvels he details could, according to him, have sprung from a process such as evolution; an intelligent creator is the only possible explanation)

Bell, G. (1997) The Basics of Selection, London: Chapman & Hall (does exactly what it says on the cover!)

Bjorklund, D. (2002) The Origins of Human Nature Washington DC: American Psychological Association

Bloom, P. (2004) Descartes' Baby: how child development explains what makes us human, London: Heinemann.

Boden, M. (1979) Piaget London: Fontana

Brookes, M. (2004) Extreme Measures: the dark visions and bright ideas of Francis Galton London: Bloomsbury ( a study of Galton gives great insight into Darwin and the Victorian scientific milieu.  See 'Extreme States' at the very least, but from there on there is much in this biography that is very interesting, e.g. Galton is the first to use statistics, first to introduce psychological questionnaires, first to try to measure intelligence and the first to develop a fingerprint identification system.)

Bryant, P.(ed) (1982) Piaget: issues and experiments Leicester: British Psychological Society

Burroughs, E. R. (2003 [1914] ) Tarzan of the Apes, New York, The Modern Library; particularly chapter 7.

Caporale, H. L. (2003) Darwin in the Genome, New York, McGraw-Hill (readable response to Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker.)

Ceci, S. and Williams, W. (1999) The Nature-Nurture Debate, Oxford: Blackwell

Cohen, D. (1983) Piaget: critique and reassessment London: Croom Helm

Cranston, M. (1997) The Solitary Self: Jean Jacques Rousseau in exile and adversity, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Damasio, A. (1994) Descartes Error: emotion, reason, and the human brain, New York: Avon.  (Important and influential argument for how the cartesian split between mind and body should now be understood)

Daniels, H. (2001) Vygotsky and Pedagogy London: Routledge Falmer

Dawkins, R. (2004) The Ancestor's Tale London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Dawkins, R. (1986) The Blind Watchmaker London: Penguin

Dawkins, R. (1978) The Selfish Gene London: Granada .  (a classic)

Dobinson, C. H. (1969) ‘Rousseau’s Educational Ideas for Children Below 12’ in Jean-Jacques Rousseau – His Thought and Relevance Today London: Methuen, Ch. 13

Donaldson, M. (1978) Children’s Minds London: Fontana Books.  (A famous, early critique of Piaget's evidence base)

Dunbar, R. (2004) The Human Story London: Faber & Faber (very readable account of 'theory of mind' - the third chapter, 'Mental Magic', is very pertinent to early childhood, but the whole book is very well written and not overwhelming with detail or assumptions of a scientific background)

Foucault, M. (1971) Madness and Civilisation: a history of insanity in the age of reason London: Tavistock, Foucault provides a deep historical study of the place of madness within culture and suggests the nature of the cultural foundations that our studies of mind rest upon.

Franklin, H. (2002) Nature and Social Theory London: Sage

Fudge, E. (2006) Brutal Reasoning: animals, rationality, and humanity in early modern England Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Gathorne-Hardy, J. (1993) The Rise and Fall of the British Nanny London: Weidenfelf & Nicolson (interesting in itself, but see chapter 2 for an account of wet nursing, etc.)

Gittins, D. (1998) The Child in Question London: Macmillan

Goldsmith, T. (1991) The Biological Roots of Human Nature Oxford: Oxford University Press

Gopnil, A. (2001) The Scientist in the Crib: minds, brains, and how children learn New York: Perennial.

Gopnik, A. & Meltzoff, A.  (2001) How Babies Think: the science of childhood London: Phoenix

Hart, D. & Sussman, R. (2005) Man the Hunted: primates, predators, and human evolution New York: Westview  (another thrust, and this time a powerful one, in the direction of Nature.  This is a very useful complement to Elaine Morgan's work.)

Howe, D. (1998) Patterns of Adaptation: nature, nurture and psychological development London: Blackwell

Jenks, C. (1996) Childhood London: Routledge

Kline, S. (1993) Out of the Garden London: Verso

Kozulin, A. (ed) (2003) Vygotsky’s Educational Theory in Cultural Context Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Malik, K. (2000) Man, Beast and Zombie: what science can and cannot tell us about human nature London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson

Marti, E. (1996) 'Mechanisms of internalisation and externalisation of Knowledge in Piaget's and Vygosky's theories' in: Tryphon, A. and Voneche, J. (eds) (1996) Piaget-Vygotsky: The social genesis of thought Hove: Psychology Press

Mayr, E. (2002) What Evolution Is London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson (probably the best authoritative explanation of Darwinian theory and the modern synthesis)

Midgley, M. (2000) Science & Poetry London: Routledge - well worth thinking about in relation to Rousseau and Vygotsky.

Miles, R.. (1995) The Children We Deserve London: Harper Collins

Mills, J. (2000) Childhood Studies London: Routledge

Mithen, S. (1996) The Prehistory of Mind London: Thames & Hudson.

Morgan, E. (2005) Pinker's List New York: Eildon Press.  (A counter to Stephen Pinker's Blank Slate)

Morgan, E. (1995) The Descent of the Child: human evolution from a new perspective Oxford: Oxford University Press.

O’ Hear, A. (1981) Education, Society and Human Nature London: Routledge

O’ Hear, A. (1997) Beyond Evolution: human nature at the limits of evolutionary explanation Oxford: Clarendon

Oates, J. (ed) (1994) The Foundations of Child Development Oxford: Blackwell

Oosterhuis, H. (2000) Stepchildren of Nature Chicago:Chicago University Press

Oyama, S., Griffiths, P. & Gray, R. eds. (2001) Cycles of Contingency: developmental systems and evolution Cam. Mass: MIT Press  (apart from the excellent introduction, the first two chapters will provide critical insight into the notion of instinctive behaviour.)

Oyama, S. (2000) Evolution's Eye Durham: Duke University Press  (a modern systems view of the nature/nurture debate)

Piaget, J. (1953) The Origin of  Intelligence in the Child London: Routledge and Kegan Paul

Piaget, J. (1972) The Principles of Genetic Epistemology London: Routledge Kegan Paul trans: Wolfe Mays

Piaget, J. (1973) The Psychology of Intelligence London: Routledge and Kegan paul

Piaget, J. and Inhelder, B. (1969) The Psychology of the Child London: Routledge and Kegan Paul

Pinker, S. (2002) The Blank Slate London: Allen Lane

Plotkin, H. (1997) Evolution in Mind London: Allen Lane; chs 3, 4, and 5.

Rich-Harris, J. (1998) The Nurture Assumption: why children turn out the way they do New York: Free Press

Ridley, M. (2003) Nature via Nurture  London: Fourth Estate.

Ridley, M. (1997) On the Origins of Virtue London: Penguin.

Rousseau, J-J (1993) Émile London: Everyman, Book II.

Sahlins, M. (1977) The Use and Abuse of Biology: an anthropological critique of sociobiology London: Tavistock

Segerstrale, U. (2000) Defenders of the Truth: the battle for science in the Sociobiology Debate Oxford: OUP

Stevenson, L. (1987) Seven Theories of Human Nature Richmond: Curzon.

Stevenson, R. L. (2002 [1886]) The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde London: Penguin.

Stringer, C. & Andrews, P. (2005) The Complete World of Human Evolution London: Thames & Hudson

Tamburrini, J. (1983) ‘Some Educational Implications of Piaget’s Theory’ in Modgil, S. and Modgil, C. (eds) Jean Piaget: consensus and controversy London: Routledge Kegan Paul

Thomas, R. M. (1985) ‘Vygotsky and the Soviet Tradition’ in Comparing Theories of Child Development Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company  Ch. 11

Thomas, R. M. (1985) Comparing Theories of Child Development Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company 2nd Edition

Tryphon, A. and Voneche, J. (eds) (1996) Piaget-Vygotsky: The social genesis of thought Hove: Psychology Press

Vygotsky, L. S. (1967) ‘Play and the role of mental development in the child’ Soviet Psychology 5 pp. 6-18

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978) Mind in Society Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press

Vygotsky, L. S. (1999) Thought and Language  Cambridge MA: MIT Press (ed and trans. By A. Kozulin) pp. 13- 20; 55-7; 186-190

de Waal, F. (1996) Good Natured: the origins of right and wrong in humans and other animals Cam. Mass.:Harvard University Press.

Weeks, J. (1991) Against Nature: essays on history, society and identity London: Rivers Oram

Williams, G. (1997) Plan and Purpose in Nature London: Phoenix

Wilson, E. O. (1975) Sociobiology: the new synthesis Harvard: Belknap Press

Wolff, S. (1989) Childhood and Human Nature: the development of personality London: Routledge

Woodhead, J. and Woodhead, M. (1990) All our Children Letchworth: Ringpress