Front cover; Half Title; Title; Copyright; Contents; List of figures and table; Author biographies; Foreword; Introduction; PART 1Community, interactionand identity; Chapter 1 Vygotsky --
From public toprivate: learning frompersonal speech; Chapter 2 Bruner: the power of story and identity; Chapter 3 Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences: every child a learner; Chapter 4 Using activity theory to examine the factors shaping the learning partnerships in a parent and child 'stay and play' session. Chapter 5 Developing communities of practice: placing professional individual identity in group interactionsChapter 6 Developing learning dispositions for life; PART 2 Structure, power and knowledge; Chapter 7 The sociology of childhood: children's agency and participation in telling their own stories; Chapter 8 Applying Bourdieu's concepts of social and cultural capital and habitus to early years research; Chapter 9 Freire revisited: critical literacy --
whose story is it anyway?; Chapter 10 Foucault: implications for multiagency working in the changing landscape of children's services. Chapter 11 Feminism, the ethic of care and professional roles with care settingsIndex; Advert; Back cover.

This accessible book demystifies the links between theory and practice for those studying in the field of early childhood. The book encourages those new to research to develop their investigations as straightforward narrative accounts of the phenomenon that they are investigating.