The Influence of Theorists and Pioneers on Early Childhood Education

Roy Evans is Editor-in-Chief of Early Child Development and Care, a position he has held since 1977. He is Visiting Professor of Early Childhood Education in the School of Education at the University of Northampton. Prior to his retirement from full-time work, Roy was Professor of Education and Head of the School of Education at Brunel University, London. Since the late 1960s, he has authored numerous books in the field of early childhood and special education, published regularly in various scholarly journals, and lectured internationally on the social integration of young children and features of the environment which represent risks to children's normal development. In 1999, the Royal Society of Arts recognized Roy for his scholarly research and publications; therefore, the Society elected him to be a fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (FRSA), which is awarded to scholars in the world that the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) identifies and determines to have made important achievements to social progress and development. He is also Chief International Editor of the International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, a journal that publishes research on adolescents and youth across international contexts. Olivia N. Saracho is Professor of Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Maryland. She has conducted many studies in the area of play focusing on areas such as literacy, cognitive style, and many others. She is widely published in the field of early childhood education. She is editor of the Handbook of Research on the Education of Young Children, 4th ed. (2021, Routledge) and the series on Contemporary Perspectives in Early Childhood Education. She is the author of An Integrated Play-Based Curriculum for Young Children (2021).

Introduction: The metamorphosis of early childhood theorists and pioneers Part I: Developmental Theories in Early Childhood Education 1. Theorists and their developmental theories 2. Revisiting Piaget, his contribution to South African early childhood education 3. Continuing the heritage of Vygotsky as a complexivist: insights from a research project among pre-primary learners in Mauritius 4. Vygotsky’s contributions to understandings of emotional development through early childhood play 5. Vygotsky’s theory in- play: early childhood education 6. Contemporary principles to lead understandings of children’s learning: synthesizing Vygotsky, Rogoff, Wells and Lindfors 7. A review of Kohlberg’s theory and its applicability in the South African context through the lens of early childhood development and violence 8. The promise and the practice of early childhood educare in the writings of Urie Bronfenbrenner 9. The impact of B. F. Skinner’s science of operant learning on early childhood research, theory, treatment, and care 10. The psychosocial development theory of Erik Erikson: critical overview 11. Bruno Bettelheim: contradictions, controversies and continuities 12. The contributions of Alfred Adler (1870–1937) to the understanding of early childhood development Part II: Pioneers and their Curriculum Programs 13. Early childhood education pioneers and their curriculum programs 14. Pestalozzi and pedagogies of love: pathways to educational reform 15. Froebel’s kindergarten and its movement in Germany and the United States 16. Friedrich Froebel: a path least trodden 17. Friedrich Froebel: interpolation, extrapolation 18. Montessori as an alternative early childhood education 19. Math achievement outcomes associated with Montessori education 20. A study on the effect of Montessori Education on self- regulation skills in preschoolers 21. How do children build knowledge in early childhood education? Susan Isaacs, Young Children Are Researchers and what happens next 22. Sustaining curiosity: Reggio-Emilia inspired learning 23. How teachers, peers, and classroom materials support children’s inquiry in a Reggio Emilia- inspired preschool 24. Mikhail Bakhtin: a two- faced encounter with child becoming(s) through dialogue 25. Waldorf inspired hyper- imaginative learning trajectories: developing new media literacies in elementary education 26. Seeing infants differently: Magda Gerber’s contributions to the early care and education field and their continuing relevance 27. A potpourri of philosophical and child development research- based perspectives as a way forward for early childhood curricula and pedagogy: reconcilable schism or irreconcilable severance? 28. Early childhood theories, ideals and social- political movements, an oral history study of pioneers in the second half of the twentieth century