Association for Professional Development in Early Years View the full list of Early Years editorial board members here
All those who read the Early Years journal will know that we have an excellent Editorial Board with members from all over the world. We are encouraging them to let members know a little about themselves through this new part of the Member Profiles pages called ‘Editorial Member Profiles’. We hope you will enjoy having this additional information and reading about those who work hard on our behalf to ensure the articles in our Journal are interesting, informative and suitably academic.
Carmen Dalli | Pascale Garnier | Hasina Banu Ebrahim | Marian Whitehead | Jane Payler | Susan Edwards | Philip Gammage | Jan Georgeson | Rod Parker-Rees | Michel Vandenbroeck | Malva Villalon | Dinah Volk | Jiaxiong Zhu | Ingrid Pramling Samuelsson Arianne Lazzari
Christine Stevens is a consultant to Early Years Scotland and a member of several groups convened by the Scottish Government to advise on early years policy and provision. The focus of her research and writing is children’s learning in the early years and the ways in which this is supported in preschool settings and at home. Her research has included examining the experiences of children as they move from preschool to primary school, considering the challenges of learning in Gaelic-immersion preschool settings and the implications for play and learning of growing up in the digital age. She retired from a full-time research role at the University of Stirling in 2016 but continues to engage in some research activities.
Carmen Dalli is Professor of Early Childhood Education and Director of the Institute for Early Childhood Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Her research focuses on early childhood policy, teacher professionalism, and group-based early childhood education and care settings for children aged under three years. Recent publications includeResearch, Policy and Advocacy for Young Children (2016, co-edited with A. Meade, NZCER) and Under-three year olds in policy and practice (2017, co-edited with E.J.White, Springer). The latter is the first in a new book series by Springer – Policy and Pedagogy with Under-three Year Olds: Cross-disciplinary Insights and Innovations – co-edited with E. J.White.
Professor Pascale Garnier is responsible for the master degree in education and Director of the research team EXPERICE (experience, cultural resources, education) in Sorbonne Paris Cité University, Paris 13. She is a specialist in the sociology of childhood. Her main fields of research are early childhood education (especially politics, partnership and children’s lives), body, material culture and professional practices (social workers, teachers, assistants…). She works with qualitative methodologies, including children’s perspectives. She belongs to the network of sociology of childhood and children of the European Sociological Association and the network of sociologie de l’enfance of the International Association of French Speaking Sociologists. She has published her research in French and recently some papers and chapters in English such as ‘Young Children and Adults: Practical Logic in Families’ lives’ in Childhood with Bourdieu, edited by L. Alanen, L. Brooker and B. Mayall (2015). She was the coordinator of the group of experts for a new national curriculum of the French école maternelle (nursery school) in 2014 for the National Council of French Schools Programs.
My name is Hasina Banu Ebrahim. I am a Professor in Early Childhood Education at the University of South Africa (UNISA). I taught in early schooling for 14 years and spent two years in management of this phase. I completed my doctorate on the constructions of early childhood in 2007. I have served in several leadership positions . I was the head of the Early Childhood Discipline for 14 years at two universities. I served as the Deputy and the President of the South African Research Association (2011-2016). I was also the co-director for the first CODESRIA Child and Youth Institute for birth to 3 which included the involvement of 13 countries in Africa. I currently serve as the sector editor for early childhood in the South African Journal of Childhood Education. I am passionate about work in early childhood policy, practice and teacher education. I have been extensively involved in curriculum and teacher education policy and practice development for early childhood in South Africa. My scholarship foregrounds the importance of paying attention to context and diversity. My latest book is on Early Childhood Education for Muslim children. I am currently leading the Project in Inclusive Early Childhood Care and Education (PIECCE) which is funded by the European Union and focuses on the professionalisation of the early childhood workforce.
My name is Marian Whitehead and I am a Language Development and Early Years Education Consultant. In a previous life I was a Senior lecturer in Education at Goldsmiths, University of London, and I led both the B.Ed. Degree and the Early Years PGCE before specialising in teaching M.A. degrees in Language and Literature in Education and Early Childhood Education.
Jane Payler is Professor of Education (Early Years), co-director of the Children’s Research Centre and Deputy Associate Dean for Scholarship in the faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies at the Open University. Jane was Chair of TACTYC from 2012-2015 and co-edits the TACTYC book series. Jane’s research focuses on interprofessional practice in early years, professional and workforce development and children’s participation, experiences and interactive learning processes. Recent publications include Beginning Teaching Beginning Learning in Early Years and Primary Education 5e (2017, co-edited with Janet Moyles and Jan Georgeson) and ‘Young children shaping interprofessional practice in early years settings: towards a conceptual framework for understanding experiences and participation’ in Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, (2016) 8: 12-24 (with Jan Georgeson and Sandie Wong).
Ingrid Pramling Samuelsson is professor of early childhood education, holds a UNESCO Chair in Early Childhood Education and Sustainable Development and World President of OMEP (Organisation Mondiale pour l’Éducation Préscolaire). Her research has primarily been about children’s learning of different content in preschool practice, children’s perspectives, didactic questions and preschool as a learning environment. She is currently working with questions about education for sustainable development in an international perspective.
Professor Susan Edwards is Director of the Early Childhood Futures research group in the Learning Sciences Institute Australia (LSIA) at the Australian Catholic (Universityhttps://lsia.acu.edu.au/research/early_childhood/). Her research centres on the role of play-based learning for the 21st century, including digital play, sustainability and wellbeing. Professor Edwards has received funding from the Australian Research Council for three Discovery Projects to investigate these areas. She is also the recipient of an award for national teaching excellence in pre-service teacher education from the Australian Learning and Teaching Council.
Emeritus Professor Philip Gammage is a founder member of TACTYC and a past Chairperson. He has been teaching since 1958 and has experience of 21 countries.
Former Dean and Head of Faculty of Education at Nottingham, he works in England, Finland and Australia each year, writes bad poetry and plays the violin. Until recently, he was adviser to the Minister of Education and Children’s Services, South Australia.
He now freelances across the world and is a Trustee of CREC, of EECERA and several international groups. He was a member of the OECD Starting Strong team, being the rapporteur for Finland.
My name is Jan Georgeson and I am Research Fellow in Early Education Development at Plymouth University. I taught in the early years sector from 1984, mainly working with children with special educational needs, and started the long journey towards an Ed.D in Educational Disadvantage and Special Educational Needs in 1998, researching in day nurseries and preschool playgroups.
I finally got there in 2006. Doing a doctorate part-time can be a lonely business, and meeting up with people at TACTYC events was very important, especially as there was no-one else working in early years on my course.
I’ve also been involved in several research projects on disability and children’s voice, and supporting parents as educators of very young children. I have a particular interest in practitioners taking vocational pathways into work in early years settings and have been involved with training and assessing candidates for Early Years Professional Status and then Early Years Teacher Status. I am also interested in using Activity Theory and Functional Linguistics to analyse organisation and interaction.
I found out about TACTYC from a colleague who told me about the friendly conferences that it organised. I then made the connection between TACTYC with its respected journal, Early Years. I applied to become an Assistant Editor, helping the main editors of Early Years with administrative tasks and am now one of the three main editors.
I have recently been elected chair of TACTYC and delighted to be able to play another role in the important work TACTYC does in keeping early years issues at the forefront of policy and training decisions.
My name is Rod Parker-Rees. I am a Visiting Research Fellow in Early Childhood Studies at the University of Plymouth and one of the trustees of TACTYC.
After completing a degree in English Language and Literature I was fortunate enough to be able to take a Nursery PGCE course in Bristol which allowed me to specialise in working with 3-4 year old children. I thoroughly enjoyed working as a nursery and reception class teacher before I moved to Exmouth to take up a post at Plymouth University where I helped to develop BEd, BA, PGCE and MA programmes in Early Childhood Studies. I worked with a great ECS team at Plymouth and, between 2004 and 2015, we produced four editions of Early Childhood Studies: an introduction to the study of children’s worlds and children’s lives (Sage/Learning Matters).
My main areas of interest are early child development, the beginnings of communication and the role of playfulness, both in childhood and throughout life. I have written various chapters and articles on these subjects and co-edited a four volume collection of research in Early Years Education (Routledge 2007). I also edited Meeting the child in Steiner kindergartens: an exploration of beliefs, values and practices (Routledge, 2011). After I retired in 2017 I was able to complete a PhD on the basis of published works, entitled ‘Meeting and Minding: early interactions and learning who we are’.
I joined Marian Whitehead and Geva Blenkin as one of the editors of our journal, Early Years, in 1999 – before the days of email and online submissions – and I greatly appreciate the opportunities this role gives me to work with a wide variety of contributors, not to mention an excellent team of colleagues. I have been on the executive committee of TACTYC for even longer and have enjoyed the regular opportunities this has given me to meet a dedicated and delightful bunch of people and to keep informed about a wide variety of early years issues. I am now one of the trustees of TACTYC, representing all of the journal editors.
Michel Vandenbroeck is professor at the Department of Social Welfare Studies, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Ghent University in Belgium. He teaches Early Childhood Care and Education and Family Pedagogy. His research focuses on early childhood policy and practice and parent support, with a special interest for diversity and social inclusion. He authored several international publications on these issues.
Before his employment at the Department, he worked as project coordinator at VBJK Centre for Innovation in the Early Years, where he set up projects on diversity in early childhood care and education and on professional development. At present, he is president of the Board of VBJK. He was a co-founder of the European network DECET (Diversity in Early Childhood Education and Training) and is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the European Early Childhood Education Research Association. Het sits on several advisory boards, including the advisory board of Kind en Gezin, the governmental agency for child care and preventive parent support in the Flemish Community of Belgium.
My name is Malva Villalon and I am Professor of Educational Psychology at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica of Chile. I received my Ph.D. in Developmental and Educational Psychology from the Universidad de Barcelona, Spain. My research focuses on early literacy learning of at-risk children attending public schools since 1998. My recent research is a longitudinal study of at-risk children from public schools participating in an intervention program that emphasize reading and writing from kindergarten (2009-2011). Since 2012, I have begun a study on the practical knowledge of early childhood teacher students for the teaching of oral language and literacy.
I am the author of a book on early literacy learning in Spanish: Alfabetización Inicial: claves de acceso a la lectura y la escritura desde los primeros meses de vida (2008). I participated as co-director of the project: Design of the National Teaching Standards for Early Childhood Initial Education, entrusted by the Chilean government. My recent papers present results from my research on the literacy development of Spanish language learners and from the evaluation of a professional development program that promotes early literacy learning in Chilean public schools serving at-risk children.
Dinah Volk is a Professor of Early Childhood Education in the College of Education, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA.
She has taught young children in the U.S. and Latin America and her research interests include the language and literacy of young bilingual children, family involvement, and culturally responsive education.
She is co-editor, with Eve Gregory and Susi Long, of Many Pathways to Literacy: Young Children Learning with Siblings, Peers, Grandparents, and Communities. Dr. Volk has published articles in the Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Young Children, Research in the Teaching of English, Literacy, and Anthropology and Education Quarterly. She is the recipient of Cleveland State University’s 2011 Distinguished Teaching Award.
Jiaxiong Zhu is Professor of Early Childhood Education at the College of Early Childhood and Special Education, East China Normal University, Shanghai, P.R. of China. His main areas of interest are early childhood curriculum and culturally appropriate ECE. He is currently an executive of the Chinese Society of Education (CSE) and Chair of the Mainland China Committee of the Pacific-Rim Early Childhood Education and Research Association (PECERA).
Arianna Lazzari is Senior Researcher at the Education Sciences Department of Bologna University. She has been working in the field of ECEC for over fifteen years, gaining professional and academic experience both in Italy and abroad (UK, Ireland, Sweden). Starting her professional career as a preschool teacher, she awarded the title of European PhD in Pedagogy in 2011, with a thesis on professionalism of the early years workforce. Her research focuses mainly on professional learning and development of practitioners working in early childhood settings across Europe as well as on ECEC policy dimensions in cross-national perspective.
Arianna has been involved in several research projects funded by the European Commission (Competence requirements for staff in ECEC, 2011; The role of ECEC in promoting educational attainment and fostering social inclusion, 2012) and by Eurofound (ECEC working conditions, training and quality of services: A systematic review). Her most recent work include the collaboration with the DG Education and Culture of the European Commission for the review of research evidence in support of the document ‘Proposal for principles of a Quality Framework for ECEC’(2014) and with the NESETII network (‘The current state of national ECEC quality frameworks in EU Member States‘, 2017). Beside research, she runs professional development courses for early childhood practitioners and teachers – as well as pedagogical coordinators – aimed at sustaining grassroots innovation of ECEC practices and services through participatory action-research pathways.