Childhood, Learning & Everyday Life in Three Asia-Pacific Cities Experiences from Melbourne, Hong Kong and Singapore

This book introduces findings from an international, cross-cultural, and interdisciplinary study of children’s everyday experiences of growing up and going to school in the context of the three global cities of Hong Kong, Singapore and Melbourne. It takes the premise that children’s learning and orientations to educational success are shaped by everyday cultural practices at home and at school, by policy contexts that both produce and respond to educational and cultural norms, and by individual and familial desires and aspirations. Drawing on research conducted with primary school-aged children in Year 4, the book considers how day-to-day routines such as going to school, engaging in extra-curricular activities outside of school, and spending time at home with family intersect with the broader milieus of education policy ideals in a changing and interconnected world. Through a combination of visual methodologies, surveys, ethnographic observations in schools, classrooms and cityscapes, re-enactments of everyday activities with children at home, and sociological education policy analysis, this book shows both the richness of children’s everyday lives and learning in global cities, as well as exploring questions that pose challenges to educational and social norms.

Chapter 1: The Global Childhoods Project: Learning and Everyday Life in Three Global Cities.- Chapter 2 : Out and About in Global Cities.- Chapter 3: Exploring the Scholarly Habitus in Children’s Lifeworlds: High-Stakes Testing and Educational Capital.- Chapter 4: Picturing Policy: Visual Representations of Curriculum Policy in Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore.- Chapter 5: Everyday Learning Looks Like this: Classroom Ethnographies in Three Global Cities.- Chapter 6: Everyday Out-of-School Lifeworlds Look Like this: Children’s Activities in Three Global Cities.- Chapter 7: Picturing Educational and Future Success.-  Chapter 8: Rethinking Global Childhoods: Learning and Everyday Life in Three Global Cities.

I-Fang Lee is Associate Professor of Early Childhood/Primary education in the School of Education at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Her current research foci are on contemporary issues relating to changes and reforms in early childhood education and care, constructions of Asian childhoods, children's mental health and wellbeing, and global knowledge on appropriate pedagogical practices in the early years. Fundamental to these research foci are her critical perspectives on issues relating to equity and justice across different early childhood care, and education systems in multiple cultural contexts. I-Fang is interested in international collaborations with researchers and higher degree research students on topics related to education and care in early years.

Sue Saltmarsh is Professor in the Department of Early Childhood Education at the Education University of Hong Kong. She is Interdisciplinary Researcher whose work sits at the nexus of childhood, cultural and educational studies. She is particularly interested in the ways that constructions of children and childhood are shaped by cultural, social, economic and political discourses, and in considering the role these intersecting discourses play in systemic and structural inequalities and disadvantage. Her research is informed by cultural theories of everyday life, consumption and violence, and post-structural theories of power, gender and subjectivity. She works extensively with qualitative methodologies, with particular expertise in ethnography, social semiotics and discourse analysis. She has conducted extensive research on the relationship between parents and schools, and works in collaboration with national parent representative groups to enhance understandings of the complexities and challenges of parent-school engagement. Her recent work on global childhoods concerns the intersection of policy, education and everyday life, and the implicationsof these for children growing up in global cities of Asia and Australia.

Nicola Yelland is Professor of Early Childhood Studies in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her teaching and research interests have been related to the use of new technologies in school and community contexts. She has also worked in East Asia, and examined the culture and curriculum of early childhood settings. Nicola’s work engages with educational issues with regard to varying social, economic and political conditions and thus requires multidisciplinary perspectives.