Call for Papers: Contemporary Continental Perspectives on Early Childhood Pedagogies, Volume 7, No. 4, December 2020
Editors: Christian Aabro, Københavns Professionshøjskole (Denmark), and Karen Prins, Københavns Professionshøjskole (Denmark)
When researching historical philosophies of childhood and education in the Western world, one can identify a wide variety of pedagogical theory traditions and inspirations in – and across – different cultures and countries. However, it is possible to identify two dominant streams: the first is often characterized as an Anglo-Saxon Curriculum oriented tradition, while the second is termed as a European continental Bildung tradition (Westbury 2002). Others have made similar distinctions, but with slightly different geographical conceptual notions, eg: OECD identifies an early education and school readiness tradition in France and Anglo-Saxon countries, and a social pedagogical tradition in Central and Northern Europe (OECD 2006:2), while Hopmann and others within the field of curriculum studies distinguish between a Continental-European Didaktik tradition and an Anglo-Saxon curriculum tradition (Hopmann 2015).
Within this context, it seems relevant to revisit the continental tradition of Bildung, in its various forms and transformations, with the purpose of considering possibilities, challenges, and alternatives to global hegemonial ideas and policies within education. For this special issue, we invite scholars to revisit continental pedagogical ideas, strands, and transformation within early childhood education, through theoretical developments, hybrids or reinstallations, and/or empirical contemporary examples of educational practices referencing to this tradition, as well as international, cross-Atlantic examples of extensions and alternations. As we wish to consider historical, political, and social conditions and translations of original inspirations, we kindly ask submissions to establish the working context they are addressing whilst considering some of the following:
• Either theoretically or empirically inspired analyses of contemporary early childhood practice,
within the Bildung tradition.
• Contemporary perspectives on the aesthetical dimensions of early childhood Bildung.
• Examples of hybrids or bridge-building across the two traditions.
• An analysis of the challenges, clashes, or tensions between transnational policies and local early
childhood Bildung contexts.
