Exploring autonomy and agency in the early years classroom using notions of figured worlds

Turnbull, Chloe-Amelia Carole (2023) Exploring autonomy and agency in the early years classroom using notions of figured worlds. Doctoral thesis (EdD), Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Abstract

This study explores the positioning of children in an early years setting and the constraining factors which might act to promote their autonomy and agency. It was motivated by concerns about the rise of the current neoliberalist climate and the way it constrains the autonomy of teachers and their students (Ball, 2016). Research in the early years demonstrates that children require high levels of engagement in activities for successful brain development (Laevers, 2003). To ensure children are developmentally ready for future learning, early years teachers need to provide practical experiences where children are fully engaged with activities of personal interest. Early years practitioners are trying to follow child-centred learning but are working within the performative pressures of maintaining good results and moving children along a timeline to achieve it. This research uses figured worlds (Holland et al, 1998) as a framework to investigate ways in which children can find a space to author the ‘self’ within their learning environment. It investigates the potential for an ‘in-the-moment’ collective approach to planning to offer autonomy and agency for the children in their learning environment. For this method to be implemented practitioners need to be flexible, innovative and highly reflexive in their approach in order to react and adapt to the challenges faced and ensure children are engaged in play which is of interest to them (Chesworth, 2018:7). This study explores three research questions: 1. What factors affect autonomy and agency for children within the early years? 2. Within the constraints of governmental regimes, how can teachers follow children’s interests in order for children to gain autonomy and agency? 3. Can ‘planning-in-the-moment’ provide further space for authoring? The research involved myself (as the class teacher) observing the children within my early years classroom whilst implementing a ‘planning-in-the-moment’ approach to follow the interests of the child. Observations were conducted from September 2018 until December 2019 and followed the same group of children as they moved from nursery into reception. It employed a methodology based in action research using thematic analysis and a cross-case comparative method in order to analyse the ‘planning-in-the-moment’ method to see the extent to which there is space for children to author the ‘self’ and become autonomous individuals. This study highlights the key impact of performativity and governmentality which has the potential to affect the authoring of ‘self’ within the learning environment. When practitioners plan in the moment they are able to promote a love of learning in an area which interests them as children interact with artifacts which offer limitless opportunities, enabling children to suggest what these artifacts might represent. Through these open-ended artifacts children are able to continually form and reform ‘self’ in their play worlds as well as develop both verbal and non-verbal communication skills. The research findings have illuminated how subject knowledge is a powerful tool in the changing of positional identities through interactions within children’s play worlds. The ‘in-the-moment’ approach also offers the children a transformational relationship between social and cultural capital as they collaborate within their play world (Huang, 2019). While a child-centred approach might potentially limit opportunities for the teacher to direct the child towards particular funds of knowledge, it generates open-ended opportunities for children to collaborate, celebrate and share a wealth of different ideas, lived experiences and personal histories have offered further opportunities of cultural and social capital. This research supported a deeper understanding not just of the positioning of the children within their figured world, but also my own positioning – as the practitioner and researcher – of this study. I became aware that reflexivity is implicit in reflectivity. In order to move forward with the data using the practitioner-based action research cycle as discussed by Kemmis and McTaggart (1988), I needed to find my own space of authoring as well as the children’s.