Interesting presentation. I like researchers who explore and expand on existing concepts.
Emotional capital in the earliest years: A critical area?
ANDI SALAMON, Australian Catholic University, Australia
The aims of this research were to examine how educators' conceptions of infants' capabilities manifest in practice, and the impact on infants' lived experience and learning in ECEC settings. The research adds another Australian perspective to the growing body of literature about the need for specialised infant and toddler pedagogy in ECEC, the importance of critical deep reflection for infant pedagogues, and extends developmental research about infants’ social and emotional capabilities to include naturalistic environments of ECEC settings. The research draws on the theory of practice architectures as a theoretical, methodological, and analytical framework. Understanding that practice arrangements (prefigured conditions of social sites of practice) enable and constrain practices, is a central theme. Data were generated using digital video, photographs, written observations, and meetings with educators. Observations of infants’ and educators’ practices were analysed, in line with the theory of practice architectures, as 'sayings’, 'doings’ and 'relatings’. Informed consent from the setting, educators and infants’ guardians was obtained. Assent was considered with infants as read through embodied responses to the researcher, the research processes and tools. The research presented infants’ sophisticated emotional practices in explicit and observable ways. Infants and educators were found to enable and constrain each other’s practices within their interdependent relationships, with infants’ drawing on banks of 'emotional capital’ (a new paradigm) as a way to engage and sustain emotional interactions with educators. Implications include understanding the impact of this new paradigm, in educational as well as family contexts, on infants’ and adults’ learning and wellbeing.
Keywords: infant pedagogy, emotional capital, infant learning, adult wellbeing, early relationships
