Relational approaches to supporting transitions into school : families and early childhood educators working together in regional Chile

We conceive transitions, the central focus of this book, across two axes. First, our attention is directed towards the contribution of the educators’ transformed practices to enhancing children’s learning, social and educational well-being and thus supporting their transition into early childhood education and later to school. Typically, we know children in contexts of high vulnerability are more likely to experience less early school success than their more advantaged peers and that their transition to school is frequently problematic (Rosier and McDonald, 2011). The early childhood education and care (ECEC) setting forms a significant bridge between the two contexts of school and home. Children who have not participated in ECEC are frequently deemed less prepared for the rules and structure of the formal school learning environment (Dockett and Perry, 2013). Second, our interest is in the transition journey of the educators and their changing practices, as they negotiated new terrain, developed fresh understandings about the families and identified new possibilities for different kinds of relationships with them. This new and dynamic terrain was shaped by a range of factors that included exposure to new approaches and conceptual resources through which to think about, plan and reflect on their work, together with their encounters with families and community members triggered by the changed approach to their pedagogical work. These experiences challenged and interrupted previous assumptions and led to new understandings and pedagogies. The evidence from this study about the extent to which this disruption occurred is strong and brings to mind a phrase frequently invoked in interview data, ‘cambiar la mirada’ (literally – ‘change the look’). This term was used by educators to describe how their view of educator-parent relations and of their practices had been transformed – how they had changed how they saw things, thus providing researchers with an indication of the significant impact of their participation in the action research component on familial relationships.