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Children, Childhood and Families (EDUC91050)
Graduate courseworkPoints: 12.5On Campus (Parkville)
To learn more, visit 2023 Course and subject delivery.
About this subject
- Overview
- Eligibility and requirements
- Assessment
- Dates and times
- Further information
- Timetable(opens in new window)
Contact information
Semester 1
Overview
Availability | Semester 1 |
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Fees | Look up fees |
This subject examines ways in which children, childhoods and their families are constructed in Australian communities and society. Focused on critical, relational and holistic perspectives, it elevates Indigenous knowledges, highlighting teachers’ professional responsibilities towards diverse cultural, ecological and relational realities, and towards a strengths-based image of the child and their family.
Topics include historical and contemporary constructions of the child and childhoods, working with families, equity, inclusion, diversity, policy, curriculum frameworks, ethics, contemporary theories and perspectives, transitions, advocacy, reciprocal relationships with families and communities, strengths-based image of the children and families, and professional roles and responsibilities. This subject references the Australian/Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Frameworks and Curricula.
Intended learning outcomes
On completion of this subject, Teacher Candidates should be able to:
- Critically reflect on historical views of children and childhoods to support understandings of contemporary constructions of the child.
- Articulate relationships between contemporary society, constructions of childhoods and early childhood pedagogies.
- Interrogate understandings that inform advocacy for diverse ways of knowing, being and doing, including for foregrounding Indigenous and diverse cultural, ecological and relational realities.
- Utilize contemporary theories to inform and develop pedagogical practices that affirm respectful, responsive and reciprocal relationships with children, families and communities.
- Explore and justify an understanding of young children's transitions and continuity of learning into, throughout and beyond the early childhood setting.
- Critically examine and articulate the role of the early childhood educator in developing strengths-based alternative pedagogies that honour the child.
Generic skills
This subject will develop the following set of key transferable skills:
- Clinical reasoning and evidence-based practice.
- Critical and creative thinking.
- Creativity and innovation.
- Teamwork and professional collaboration.
- Learning to learn and metacognition.
- Responsiveness to a changing knowledge base.
- Reflection for continuous improvement.
- Linking theory and practice.
- Inquiry and research.
- Active and participatory citizenship.
- Ethical and intercultural understanding.
Last updated: 10 February 2024
Eligibility and requirements
Prerequisites
None
Corequisites
None
Non-allowed subjects
None
Inherent requirements (core participation requirements)
The University of Melbourne is committed to providing students with reasonable adjustments to assessment and participation under the Disability Standards for Education (2005), and the Assessment and Results Policy (MPF1326). Students are expected to meet the core participation requirements for their course. These can be viewed under Entry and Participation Requirements for the course outlines in the Handbook.
Further details on how to seek academic adjustments can be found on the Student Equity and Disability Support website: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/student-equity/home
Last updated: 10 February 2024
Assessment
Description | Timing | Percentage |
---|---|---|
Document Analysis: Critically examine either a policy or curriculum document with regards to how it informs constructions of childhoods
| Mid semester | 30% |
Essay: An essay on the professional roles and responsibilities of early childhood teachers
| During the examination period | 70% |
Attendance Hurdle requirement: A minimum of 80% attendance at, or engagement with, all sessions identified as contact hours (may include lectures, tutorials, seminars and workshops, both synchronous and asynchronous). | Throughout the teaching period | N/A |
Last updated: 10 February 2024
Dates & times
- Semester 1
Coordinator Mode of delivery On Campus (Parkville) Contact hours 24 hours (16 hours on-campus classes and 8 hours asynchronous online activities) Total time commitment 170 hours Teaching period 27 February 2023 to 28 May 2023 Last self-enrol date 10 March 2023 Census date 31 March 2023 Last date to withdraw without fail 5 May 2023 Assessment period ends 23 June 2023 Semester 1 contact information
What do these dates mean
Visit this webpage to find out about these key dates, including how they impact on:
- Your tuition fees, academic transcript and statements.
- And for Commonwealth Supported students, your:
- Student Learning Entitlement. This applies to all students enrolled in a Commonwealth Supported Place (CSP).
Subjects withdrawn after the census date (including up to the ‘last day to withdraw without fail’) count toward the Student Learning Entitlement.
Last updated: 10 February 2024
Further information
- Texts
Prescribed texts
There are no specifically prescribed texts for this subject.
Recommended texts and other resources
Arndt, S. (2018). Early childhood teacher cultural Otherness and belonging. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 19(4), 392-403. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1463949118783382
Biesta, G. (2016). Improving education through research? From effectiveness, causality and technology to purpose, complexity and culture. Policy Futures in Education, 14, 194-210. doi: 10.1177/1478210315613900
Mitchell, L. (2010). Constructions of childhood in early childhood education policy debate in New Zealand. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 11(4), 328-341
Moss, P., & Dahlberg, G. (2008). Beyond Quality in Early Childhood Education and Care – Languages of Evaluation. New Zealand Journal of Teachers’ Work, 5(1), 3-12.
Moss, P. (2010). We cannot continue as we are: the educator in an education for survival. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 11(1), 8-19.
Myers, C. Y. (2016). Becoming “babies” in real time: Temporal emergence in the classroom mangle. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 17(4), 421-430. DOI: 10.1177/1463949116677926
Salazar Perez, M., & Saavedra, C. M. (2018). Black and Chicana feminisms: Journeys toward spirituality and reconnection. In M. Bloch, B. B. Swadener, & G. S. Cannella (Eds.), Reconceptualizing early childhood education and care - A reader: Critical questions, new imaginaries & social activism (pp. 129-138). New York, NY: Peter Lang.
Smith, K., Tesar, M., & Myers, C. Y. (2016). Edu-capitalism and the governing of early childhood education and care in Australia, New Zealand and the United States. Global Studies of Childhood, 6(1), 123-135
Srinivasan, P. (2014). Early Childhood in Postcolonial Australia: Children’s Contested Identities. New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan.
Taylor, A. (2013). Reconfiguring the natures of childhood. Oxon, UK: Routledge.
Tesar, M., & Koro-Ljungberg, M. (2015). Cute, creepy and sublime unnamed childhood monstrosities. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 1-11. doi:10.1080/01596306.2015.1075708
Townsend-Cross, M. (2004). Indigenous Australian perspectives in early childhood education. Australia Journal of Early Childhood, 29(4), 1-6.
Urban, M. (2015). From ‘closing the gap’ to an ethics of affirmation. Reconceptualising the role of early childhood services in times of uncertainty. European Journal of Education, 50(3), 293-306.
- Related Handbook entries
This subject contributes to the following:
Type Name Course Master of Teaching (Early Childhood) - Links to additional information
Faculty of Education: https://education.unimelb.edu.au/
Last updated: 10 February 2024