Marilyn Fleer
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 524473 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Marilyn Fleer |
| NOMBRES | Marilyn |
| APELLIDO | Fleer |
| FIRMA | FLEER M |
| AFILIACIONES | Monash University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1224-5510 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 67 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 14 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 66 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 1 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1989 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 3 |
Conceptual PlayWorld pedagogical practices in an Australian playgroup to engage children in learning science concepts
Playgroups in Australia bring parents and playgroup leaders together to enrich children’s experiences through play. Facilitated playgroups, led by teachers with a pedagogical purpose, are less well understood. This cultural-historical study investigated 16 imaginary play sessions involving 16 children, aged 13 months to 4 years, and their families over a 10-month period. It focuses on two key aspects of pedagogical practices: object-oriented play…
Exploring Science Concepts in Everyday Interactions with Infant-toddlers at Home
Family is the core institution for infant-toddlers’ science learning. However, little is known about how caregivers support infant-toddlers’ science concept formation at home. The study presented in this paper follows 18 families with infant-toddlers aged 4 to 24 months old (mean age 10 months old) over five weeks in an educational experiment of Fleer’s Conceptual PlayWorld (CPW) at home using We Are Going on a Bear Hunt story. 46 h of recorded d…
Models of STEM Teaching
This paper answers the question of how early childhood teachers resource their own conceptual knowledge of STEM within play-based settings in Greece and Australia. Through bringing together 2 data sets where the intervention of a Conceptual PlayWorld was implemented in both countries, we were able to identify how teachers in both countries worked with the model of STEM teaching to meet their own personal and institutional needs for greater outcom…
Noticing relationally
This study examines noticing relationally as an emerging pedagogical assessment practice within a Conceptual PlayWorld designed to foster STEM engagement among children and their caregivers in an Australian playgroup. A Conceptual PlayWorld ( Fleer, 2019a , Fleer, 2019b , Fleer, 2020 , Fleer, 2021 ) is a play-based pedagogical and learning model that engages children and adults in imaginary play to support STEM learning. Sixteen children aged 13 …
Conceptual Play Worlds
The introduction of intentionality and play-based learning in the Australian early years learning framework (2009, 2022) has brought forward a theory-practice contradiction. Early childhood teachers are expected to navigate between the longstanding tradition of designing interest-based programs and curriculum guidelines for intentional teaching to drive conceptual learning and children's development. Positioned as a continuum of child-led to teac…
Theory-informed beliefs in early childhood education
Theory-informed practice has a long tradition within the profession of early childhood education in Australia and internationally.Aligned with longstanding policy and curriculum in Australia, the profession has seen a prominence of resources informed by biological, behaviourism/socio-behaviourist, social learning, psycho-genetic, culturalhistorical, critical and poststructuralist theories.Despite the plethora of theories being supported within ea…
Conceptual PlayWorld intervention in a toddler playgroup
Research affirms that when parents play with their toddlers in imaginary scenarios, the play of these infants becomes more sophisticated. From a Vygotskian perspective, the development of imaginary play supports formation of conceptual thinking. However, the majority of Australian parents report low confidence in their ability to support play, and advocate the desire to receive education about how to achieve this. Community playgroup settings off…
Play in the Early Years
Play has a significant role in children's learning and development. Play in the Early Years examines the central questions about play from the perspectives of children, families and educators, providing a comprehensive introduction to the theory and practice of play for children from birth to eight years. In its fourth edition, Play in the Early Years has been thoroughly updated in line with the revised Early Years Learning Framework and the new …
Conceptual PlayWorld
In recent times, engineering education has increasingly emerged as a valued kindergarten practice. Engineering teaching in play brings challenges for Chinese kindergarten teachers. An educational experiment (EE) was conducted to help Chinese kindergarten teachers face this challenge. Qualitative data including video data and interview transcripts were collected in a public kindergarten located in a Chinese provincial capital city. Participants in…
A cultural‐historical study of how educators create conditions for infant and toddler learning in science
Calls to bring more equity into science education research (McWayne and Melzi, 2023) are most notable for early childhood. We know very little about the teaching of science to infants and toddlers, yet this is where science education begins. To address the dearth in research, we undertook an in‐depth intervention study in an Australian early childhood center with six educators working with 11 infants and toddlers learning science (1.1–2.0 years; …
Parent pedagogical positioning to create conditions for preschooler STEM learning using a Conceptual PlayWorld approach
STEM education has become a national priority, critical to the future of the workforce and the building of competitive economies across the globe. The literature suggests that early engagement with basic STEM concepts supports mastery of STEM subjects in later school years and in the professions. This has generated a need to better understand the ways children learn STEM concepts in family settings where it is understood that much of children's c…
From objects to artefacts to props
Imagination is considered a highly desired mental function in the 21st century, yet little is known about the emergence of play and imagination in infancy and toddlerhood. This paper reports an educational experiment of We Are Going on a Bear Hunt Conceptual PlayWorlds (CPW) in family settings to explore this under-researched area. Eighteen families with infant-toddlers (18 children 4 to 24 months old, mean age of 10 months) were recruited, with …
“What parts of the plants do we eat, is this STEM?” – A study of Chinese kindergarten teachers' STEM professional development
Infants and toddlers in imaginary play situations
In line with contemporary views that problematise a stage-based approach to play, the study reported in this paper investigated the early forms of imaginary play of infants and toddlers. Results from two cohorts are presented in support of the genesis (11 infants; 1.1–2.0y; mean 1.6) and development of imagination as a psychological function (19 toddlers; 2.5–3.3ys; mean 2.9). Under the same conditions of an intervention of a Conceptual PlayWorld…
Rising to the concrete
This paper presents the results of a cultural-historical study of the genesis and development of concepts by infants and toddlers. Under the conditions of an educational experiment of a Conceptual PlayWorld in a living laboratory of a childcare centre, we investigated the developmental conditions and dramatic imaginary play moments of this cultural age period. We found that a family system was the genesis of the lived experience of a concept from…
Conceptual PlayWorlds
Structured and teacher-directed play focused on children’s academic outcomes has proven problematic in Indonesian early childhood education. This contrasts with the PlayWorlds model, which emphasises both the primary activity of play and conceptual learning. However, there has been little research in Indonesia on the pedagogical aspects of the PlayWorlds model in creating conditions for children’s learning and development. The purpose of this stu…
Contradictions and roadblocks
Whilst there is a body of emerging literature related to science education for children aged 3 years and above, less is known about educators’ beliefs when planning for the teaching of science concepts to infants and toddlers in group settings. This paper discusses how educators working with children under 18 months of age talk about and plan for the teaching of science concepts. We undertook an educational experiment with 6 educators and 11 infa…
Zoom play
The theorisation of digital technologies for play-based settings has received a great deal of attention. However, less is known about how zoom modalities, which are increasingly becoming commonplace at work and in the home, have impacted on the play of children in Family Day Care. Whilst theoretical attention has been given to conceptualising multimodalities in centre programmes, Family Day Care is uniquely different. This paper takes up this cha…
A cultural-historical study of how a conceptual playworld creates conditions for personally meaningful mathematics in the Chinese kindergarten context
Previous studies have emphasised that play can promote children’s learning of mathematics. However, little research has been directed towards understanding how collective imaginary play motivates children's mathematical learning. Informed by the cultural-historical conception of play and motives, this paper examines how Conceptual PlayWorld (CPW) creates conditions for Chinese children's meaningful mathematical learning using the concept of repea…
Perezhivanie
The role of imagination in science education in the early years under the conditions of a Conceptual PlayWorld
Scientists imagine when thinking scientifically, often conceptualised as thought experiments (Albert Einstein), reconciling both the study of the universe and the molecular world (Stephen Hawking) or when engaging with complex ideas, such as in genetics when imagining going down a microscope to study genes (Barbara McClintock). These imaginings are important in science. But does imagination matter in science education? What is the role of imagina…
A cultural-historical study of emotions in play
As a critical developmental goal, emotion regulation (ER) for young children in orphanages has yet to be fully understood. This paper explores how co-experiencing of dramatic interactions in playworlds supports a child’s resolution and regulation of emotions in an institutional care setting in China. 49 hours of video data were analysed with the cultural-historical concepts of catharsis and perezhivanie. Findings show that catharsis as a crucial …
How an educational experiment creates motivating conditions for children to role-play a child-initiated PlayWorld
Government guidelines are demanding greater educational outcomes and intentional teaching in Australian preschools. The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a study of how children incorporate concepts into child-initiated play. A cohort of 18 children (aged 3.0–5.8, mean age of 4.8) were digitally observed over seven weeks (153.3 hours' digital video observations). It was found that rather than formalising preschooling to increase …
Theorising Digital Tools
Promoting Chinese children's agency in science learning
The Theory of ‘Belonging’
The implementation in 2009–10 of the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) spearheaded the efforts of the Australian Commonwealth government to institute a national curriculum. The theme of the new early childhood framework follows three guiding concepts: Belonging, Being and Becoming. In this article, we discuss these three concepts in order to provide a theoretical context to the Early Years Learning Framework and to enrich the debate surroundi…
Methodological Challenges of Studying Children in a Living Laboratory
Digital technologies have created possibilities in research unavailable when Vygotsky first introduced his cultural-historical approach for studying children’s development. More needs to be known about the relations between methodology and method when using digital tools in the early developmental period (1-5 years). In this paper we introduce the concept of a living laboratory to capture the research dynamics of this cultural age period in famil…
Curriculum Compartmentalisation
Children aged 5-12 years were asked to think about what their environment would look like when they were grandparents. Children from two regions of Australia (the Australian Capital Territory and rural New South Wales) drew and discussed their visions for the future. This paper examines the data and discusses the implications for science education, technology education and environmental education. Futures education is discussed within the context…
Playworlds and Executive Functions in Children
Collective Imagining
On entering formal education, infants face the demand of participating in collective educational rou¬tines and learning experiences. However, in this age period, the sense of collectiveness is still in an embry¬onic form. This study explored how infants enter into and experience the need for collectiveness and how teachers create the conditions for the development of a sense of collectiveness during infancy. Our educa¬tional experiment drew on a …
Collective imagination as a source of professional practice change
A cross-cultural study of the implementation of microcomputers into schools
There is a strong commitment by education authorities for computer technology to become part of the curriculum in most Australian schools, however, little research has been focussed on how this will happen. Many schools and education systems have had to rely on a trial and error method of implementation, resulting in a limited awareness of, and consideration for the: ...issues of equal opportunity or disadvantage. In fact, many of them (school st…
Curriculum Compartmentalisation
Children aged 5-12 years were asked to think about what their environment would look like when they were grandparents. Children from two regions of Australia (the Australian Capital Territory and rural New South Wales) drew and discussed their visions for the future. This paper examines the data and discusses the implications for science education, technology education and environmental education. Futures education is discussed within the context…
Troubling Cultural Fault Lines
Drawing on Vygotsky's (1997a) concept of fossilized behavior, this study examines the cultural fault lines between the imagined community (Anderson, 1991) of early childhood education and some Australian Indigenous families. Through creating a social space within which Indigenous families could examine dominant and taken-for-granted discourses within early childhood education, participants could make visible assumptions and beliefs about early ch…
Children's Development as Participation in Everyday Practices across Different Institutions
Children participate in different institutional collectives in their everyday life. Home, school, and kindergarten are the institutional contexts that most children share. Although there are variations between home practices and school practices, they collectively share a common core framed by societal conditions. In drawing upon Vygotsky's (1998) Vygotsky, L. S. 1998. The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky (M. J. Hall, Trans., Vol. 5, Child Psych…
“Visual Vivencias”
A Cultural-Historical Study of How Children from Hong Kong Immigrant Families Develop a Learning Motive within Everyday Family Practices in Australia
This article draws on a cultural-historical theorization of child development alongside the Chinese concept of learning in order to study children's development in the Hong Kong Australian community. In particular, it aims to understand in detail how a 9-year-old child develops a learning motive under highly structured family practices. The data analysed were selected from a larger set of data involving 80 hr of video observations generated from …
Emotions in Imaginative Situations
Fairytales represent a long-standing cultural practice used by early childhood teachers for supporting children's social and emotional development. Yet contemporary practices see governments demanding a more academic curriculum. In drawing upon cultural-historical research, we theorise how fairytales help children to collectively develop emotion regulation, where the unity of emotions and cognition are foregrounded during the telling, retelling, …
The Theory of ‘Belonging’
The implementation in 2009–10 of the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) spearheaded the efforts of the Australian Commonwealth government to institute a national curriculum. The theme of the new early childhood framework follows three guiding concepts: Belonging, Being and Becoming. In this article, we discuss these three concepts in order to provide a theoretical context to the Early Years Learning Framework and to enrich the debate surroundi…
The demands and motives afforded through digital play in early childhood activity settings
Moving countries
Re-signing
Recent cultural-historical literature stresses the need for understanding the role of signs in emotional development. This article examined how the signification of children’s emotions in everyday parent–child interactions creates the conditions for the emergence of intrapersonal emotion regulation. Four families with children ages 3–6 years were studied in Australia. Findings indicated that parents’ re-signing supported the emergence of children…
Perezhivanie as a Theoretical Concept for Researching Young Children’s Development
The phenomenon of perezhivanie has received increasing attention in recent years; however, an understanding of perezhivanie as a concept remains elusive. This article discusses perezhivanie as a theoretical concept from within a cultural-historical framework; through this, the article aims to foreground the significance of this concept for studying young children’s development. In this article we show development through drama in both everyday li…
The Journey Forward
What makes cultural-historical theory unique is that every concept refers to a certain aspect of the complex process of development that we believe are collectively exemplified in this issue of Min
Re-conceptualizing executive functions as social activity in children's playworlds
Digital Role-Play
This study reports on the contradictions between the motive orientations of teachers and preschool children when digital animation was introduced in 3 preschools (103 children M age = 3;8 years, 4;2 years, and 5;0 years, respectively; n= 371 hr of video). The findings suggested that new psychological conditions are created during digital play; differing motive orientations of children and teachers appear to have a bearing on how children pay atte…
International Transitions
This article provides an in-depth examination of the emerging identity of a 5-year-old child during her international transition from Saudi Arabia to Malaysia. Observations of the child’s everyday life at home and school, alongside interviews with the child’s mother and teacher, enabled an understanding of the dynamic relation between past, current, and future events. The process of forming a new friendship foregrounded shared motives, emotions, …
Cultural-Historical Theories of Child Development
The need for Po-Mo in educational theory is greater than ever
The need for Po-Mo in educational theory is greater than ever." Educational Philosophy and Theory, 50(14), pp. 1545–1546
Cultural-Historical Approaches to Studying Learning and Development
Supporting Difficult Transitions
The international contributors to Supporting Difficult Transitions discuss examples of transitions that are problematic for children, young people and their carers. Focusing on vulnerable children and young people, the transitions include: starting school, changing schools, starting work, entering a new culture or a culture that has been changed to focusing on vulnerable children and young people. The book will be useful to practitioners involved…
Digitally amplified practices
To examine the agentic conditions afforded through the use of digital tools in play-based settings, the Vygotskian (1997a, 1997b) concept of imitation was used to study the pedagogical practices of two teachers over two years (Group 1: 3–5.8 years, mean 4.5 years; Group 2: 4.7–6.7, mean 4.5). Rather than a static view of digital technology, where screen time acts as a proxy for understanding the child’s experience, this study found a complex prof…
Inclusion of a child with expressive language difficulties in a mainstream Australian preschool – roundabout ways can create opportunities for participation
Contemporary educational policies both at international and national levels acknowledge the educational rights of all children and their inclusion in mainstream educational practices. Like other children at risk, children with disabilities have opportunities to access mainstream education but their participation is not always realised in practice. To address opportunities and challenges of inclusion of children with disabilities, this paper exami…
Digital pop-ups
Whilst a lot is known about the digital environments of preschools, less is understood about the emerging digital pedagogies of teachers. This paper presents the findings of a cultural-historical study of pedagogical practices of teachers as they implemented a digitally enhanced play-based programme where the MyCreate app was used to make an animation of a fairytale. Over a period of 5.4 weeks, digital observations (27.3 h) of 5 teachers and thei…
Examining the psychological content of digital play through Hedegaard's model of child development
Studying the relations between motives and motivation – How young children develop a motive orientation for collective engineering play
Psychology (54 obras) · Sociology (45 obras) · Early Childhood Education and Development (42 obras) · Pedagogy (33 obras) · Developmental psychology (32 obras) · Child Development and Digital Technology (22 obras) · Social Psychology (16 obras) · Computer Science (15 obras) · Epistemology (15 obras) · Mathematics education (15 obras)