Transnational Dialogues for sustainability research in early childhood education: A model for building capacity

for ESD in universities?

Emery, Davis, Sageidet, Hirst, Boyd & Browder

Corresponding author: Sherridan Emery sherridan.emery@utas.edu.au

Transnational Dialogues in Early Childhood Education for Sustainability● What is Early Childhood Education for Sustainability?

○ Establishing and growing a field of research● Participants

○ international colleagues with an interest in research in ECEfS○ Intergenerational scholars - research students to full professors

● Rationale

○ build capacity for research in ECEfS, focussed towards children as agentic beings

○ create coalition of researchers to overcome isolation○ contribute to building researcher ‘track’○ enhance visibility of ECEfS to impact on policy and practice

● Conditions○ No funding. Participants encouraged to find own sources○ Leveraging upon major conferences ○ Focus on research collaborations and outputs

TND in ECEfS: Meetings 1, 2, 3

TND 1: Stavanger, Norway 2010

TND 2: Brisbane, Australia 2011

TND 3: Stavanger, Norway, 2015

TND 3 in Stavenger, 2015

TND3.2 : catchup of members at OMEP conference, Korea July 2016

History of the TND

○ Background: The field of ECEfS had a very small research base (Davis, 2009)

○ 2010: Prof. Julie Davis, Australia, and Prof. Eva Johansson, Norway, initiated the first meeting

○ Intentions: a forum for international researchers to share multi-national, multi-cultural and multi disciplinary perspectives and experiences

○ Goal: provoking interest and ideas for future collaborative research, publications, scholarly exchanges and mentoring

○ Initial outcomes: collaborative research proposals and papers, a submission to the deliberations that proceded the UN Rio+20 conference in 2012

Research Projects Emerging from TND3● Children’s Webs of Connectedness in ECEfS● ECEfS in Early Years Curriculum Frameworks● ECEfS in Preservice Teacher Education

Lines of flight…. ● Example of outcomes (England)

Dialogue from TND 3 has resulted in multiple ‘lines of flight’ (Deleuze & Guatarri, 1987)

○ Routledge text 2016:Boyd, Hirst & Siraj-Blatchford Understanding Sustainability in Early Childhood Education across the UK

○ Embedding the EYFS into the Eco-schools Programme○ Presentations OMEP UK (May 2016)○ The Cambridge Primary Review London (Number 4 relates to Sustainability) ○ Embed sustainability and global citizenship in educational policy and practice,

giving practical meaning to the 2015 UN agenda of ESD.○ Education for Sustainability within Early Childhood Studies; Higher Education as a

site for collaboration and Inquiry (October 2016)

Outcomes & future plans● Outcomes

○ Routledge text 2014: 30 authors; 10 countries○ Translated into Korean (2015)○ Numerous papers published○ Numerous joint conference presentations○ Thesis examiners

● Future Plans○ Special edition International Journal of EC (2017)○ TND4 to be held in Canada in 2017○ Continue to expand loose membership in a controlled way

Lessons Learned ?● Lines of flight demonstrating the power of collaboration

as a transformative tool. Sue Elliott talked about developing the ‘patches of green’(Davis & Elliott, 2015).

● From patches of green to weaving webs.● How is this a model for building capacity for ESD in

universities?

references

Davis, J. and Elliot, S. (2014) Research in Early Childhood Education for Sustainability: International perspectives and provocations. London: Routledge.

Deleuze, G and Guatarri, F. (1987) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. London: University of Minnesota Press.

Contact Information● Sherridan Emery (Australia)- sherridan.emery@utas.edu.au● Julie M. Davis (Australia) - j.davis@qut.edu.au● Barbara Maria Sageidet (Norway)- barbara.sageidet@uis.no● Nicky Hirst (United Kingdom) - N.J.Hirst@ljmu.ac.uk● Diane Boyd (United Kingdom) - D.J.Boyd@ljmu.ac.uk● Jamison K. Browder (USA)- jkbrowder@hotmail.com