Diffracting early childhood teachers’ culture stories: Reimagining methodologies

Sonja Arndt; Clare Bartholomaeus

doi:10.7577/rerm.5237

Authors

Sonja Arndt University of Melbourne https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0778-1850
Clare Bartholomaeus https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9843-8390

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7577/rerm.5237

Keywords:

teachers' cultures, culture stories, early childhood education, diffraction, methodologies

Abstract

Teachers’ cultures impact on their orientations to diversity and pedagogical practices. However, limited attention is given to early childhood teachers’ cultures in research and practice. Informed by Barad’s notions of diffraction and intra-action, we reimagine research methodologies as critical in shaping research on what culture does or how it works for teachers and their culture stories. Turning and re-turning to diffractively engage with teachers’ culture stories in an exploratory Australian project, this paper pushes the boundaries of conceptualisations of research. It elevates the ways in which research methodologies, like culture, are always re-iterative, contingent and responsive to their relational context.

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Author Biography

Clare Bartholomaeus

Clare Bartholomaeus is a Research Fellow in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her key research interests include gender, diversity, and children/young people. She has published widely in the areas of education, gender studies, health, and family studies, including the books Children's lifeworlds in a global city: Melbourne (with Nicola Yelland, Springer, in press), and Children's lifeworlds in a global city: Singapore (with Li Mei Johannah Soo, Nanthini Karthikeyan, Kam Ming Lim, and Nicola Yelland, Springer, in press).

ORCID 0000-0001-9843-8390

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