A closer look: Socio-structural influences on teacher–child interactions during project work

Abstract

An increasing amount of attention and public funding has been dedicated in recent years to the field of Early Childhood Education and the expansion of early childhood programs in the United States. Program quality in early childhood is evaluated based on program-level structural features and instructional support (e.g. problem solving, feedback, and language modeling), but quantifiable measures of structural and process features do not necessarily equate to quality instructional interactions. Questions remain about the presence and strength of socially constructed power dynamics found in pedagogic practice. This case study seeks to illuminate interactions between children and teachers in federally funded Head Start classrooms, teachers’ views of children, and influences to novice project work using the Project Approach. The project work served as a frame for viewing interactions between teachers and children as mediated by varying degrees of power and control of teacher–child interactions at the classroom level (identified as “socio-structures”). Questions investigated were the following: (1) What are the socio-structures inside these Head Start classrooms before and during the implementation of the Project Approach? (2) How do existing socio-structures relate to teacher–child instructional language interactions during the implementation of the Project Approach?

Keywords

democracy early childhood curriculum head start participation teacher–child relationships

Introduction

An increasing amount of attention and public funding has been dedicated over the last decade to the field of Early Childhood Education. While support for public early childhood education is growing, meta-analyses using longitudinal data have revealed a persistent unevenness within program quality (Howes et al., 2008; Massey et al., 2008). Preschool quality is evaluated based on program-level structural features, such as teacher credentials and material resources, as well as classroom-level process features, such as emotional support (teacher responsiveness, child initiated interactions), organizational support (clear procedures, children perform routines), and instructional support (problem solving, feedback, and language modeling) (Mashburn et al., 2008; Pianta et al., 2004). Hamre (2014) notes that quantifiable measures of structural and process features are not synonymous with quality instructional interactions (Vartuli et al., 2014).

Questions remain about the presence and strength of classroom socio-structures—a term here used to describe the socially constructed power dynamics found in pedagogic practice (Bernstein, 1996)—that encompass structural and process features used widely as markers of quality in early childhood. Decades of empirical research has found inquiry-based curriculum models, which position the learner as co-constructors of knowledge, lead to deeper learning and better performance on complex tasks, and yet they are still uncommon in publicly funded schools at all levels (Darling-Hammond et al., 2008; Smith, 2015; Thompson, 2000). This suggests a need for greater understanding of teacher–child interactions in settings like Head Start and a close examination of contextual differences between the enactment of process features that do support high-quality instruction and those that do not.

This case study seeks to illuminate the relational nature between the Project Approach (an inquiry framework) and teacher–child instructional language interactions in two Head Start classrooms, by considering how the curriculum and instructional relationship was mediated by existing socio-structures found at the classroom level. Questions investigated were the following: (1) What are the socio-structures inside these Head Start classrooms before and during the implementation of the Project Approach? (2) How do existing socio-structures relate to teacher–child instructional language interactions during the implementation of the Project Approach?

Inquiry-based learning and educative experiences

High-quality instructional interactions are teacher–child interactions that promote social, intellectual, and academic development with many studies highlighting learner-centric inquiry approaches as a method for providing high-quality social emotional and instructional supports in classrooms (Bell, 2010; Darling-Hammond et al., 2008; Helm and Katz, 2009; Holm, 2011; Kanter and Konstantopoulos, 2010). In learner-centric classrooms, curriculum reflects children’s lived experiences and interests, through a process of shared inquiries and investigations that produce co-constructed knowledge (Dewey, 1902, 1915/2001). Inquiry-based classrooms similarly reflect Dewey’s pedagogy through active investigations, dialogical interactions, and collaborative work among students (Lee and Kinzie, 2012). Learner-centric inquiry-based methods of instruction can be described as a constructivist approach to education or an applied approach of constructivist learning theory, which is the belief that learning is an active and internal process ultimately controlled by the learner (Battista, 1999; Brooks and Brooks, 1999).

The realization of a constructivist approach inside classrooms begins with the following tenets: seeking and valuing students’ points of views, lessons structured to challenge and build upon what learners already know, relevance to lived experience, knowledge sought is conceptual with discreet skills and facts learned due to their relevance to the big idea, and authentic assessments embedded within investigation (Brooks and Brooks, 1993; Murdoch, 2015). Inquiry-based frameworks share these characteristics yet vary in duration, content focus, level of inquiry from discovery–to–guided–to–structured application, and age appropriateness. Examples of commonly used inquiry-based frameworks with pre-primary and older students include project-based learning (Polman, 2000), problem-based learning (Barell, 2006), and the International Baccalaureate’s trans-disciplinary themes, which utilize Murdoch’s (2015) inquiry cycle.

The early learning inquiry framework used in the classrooms under investigation in this study is the Project Approach (Helm and Katz, 2009). The Project Approach is an instructional approach for conducting in-depth investigations of worthy topics in which children build autonomy as they construct and negotiate meaning with members of the class (Helm and Katz, 2009). While constructivist tenets can be located within the Project Approach framework, the developmentally appropriate social-constructivist emphasis within this approach aligns more with Dewey’s (1902, 1915/2001) child-centered educative experiences guided by adults and Vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural conceptions of learning (Hertzog, 2007; Moll, 2004).

Many empirical studies have focused on the Project Approach’s efficacy with diverse learners, implementation efforts, and impact on teacher–child instructional interactions, with several showing positive benefits on children’s disposition for learning and cognitive growth (e.g. student engagement, language use, and academic gains; Beneke and Ostrosky, 2009; Hertzog, 2007; Vartuli et al., 2014). These studies also identified common external and internal barriers faced by teacher’s implementing project work, for example, district curricular mandates and teacher beliefs about their own and children’s abilities to engage in project work (Beneke and Ostrosky, 2009; Hertzog, 2007; Vartuli et al., 2014).

Progressive preschool models that employ inquiry-based frameworks by eliciting children’s questions and developing curricular projects are often cited as the standard of quality (Harris, 2015). And yet, the enactment of high-quality teacher–child interactions via emergent and dialogical shared inquiry are as elusive today as in Dewey’s time despite our modern frameworks and exemplar models such as the Perry Preschool Project and the preschools found in Reggio Emilia, Italy (Cabell et al., 2013; Darling-Hammond et al., 2008; Hertzog, 2007; Schweinhart et al., 2005). The problem is as much a social and ideological one as it is an issue of teacher training and district/school curricular constraints—two elements, often noted as barriers to inquiry-based teaching and learning (Dewey, 1904/1974; Hertzog, 2007; Kanter and Konstantopoulos, 2010).

Classroom features at the micro-level

A number of researchers in education (see, for example, Hasan 2001; Morais, 2002; Singh, 2001; Smith, 2015; Williams 1999) use Bernstein’s (1981, 1996, 2001) concepts of classification and framing as a means of identifying and describing power dynamics within curricula and pedagogies. This study will focus on the use of classification and framing for their descriptive power of the relational elements of pedagogic modalities within classrooms.

Bernstein (1981, 1996) uses the term “classification” to define the maintenance of boundaries that, in turn, maintain constructs of power. This may include boundaries between disciplines within the curriculum (e.g. between literacy and mathematics), ideas, the flow of conversation, classrooms spaces, and so on. In an early childhood classroom with curricular constructs that demonstrate strong classification, children work in one discipline at a time or discrete skills in isolation. Teachers maintain the flow of conversations so that children do not wander off-topic. Classroom spaces have clear and rigid functions. When curricula demonstrate weak classification, activities draw from multiple disciplines and children learn discrete skills within contexts of larger activities. Teachers encourage children to lead conversations, allowing children to begin applying ideas that emerge in conversation to other contexts (Hasan, 2001). The function of classroom spaces is fluid.

Bernstein (1981, 1996) uses “framing” to describe the message system for delivering the curriculum (the pedagogy). The messages of communication inherent to the pedagogy include those that control sequencing (the order in which skills are learned), pacing (the rate of movement through the curriculum), criteria (means of assessment), and hierarchies (power relations within the teacher/learner relationship). When the messaging of these elements is strong, producing strong framing, teachers teach skills in a specific and unwavering order, all children must maintain a preset pace of learning, the tools used by teachers to assess learning are explicit, and there is a clear division of power within the classroom between the teacher and the taught. When messaging is weak, children learn skills in the order in which they are needed rather than an order that is dictated, children are able to learn at their own pace, methods of assessment are largely invisible to children, and the relationship between the teacher and the taught allows for greater equality and shared learning.

The literature shows strong support for using Bernstein’s pedagogic codes of classification and framing as two interrelated lens with which to analyze classrooms at the micro-level across international and national contexts (Morais, 2002; Sadovnik, 1991; Smith, 2015; Sriprakash, 2010). But the work of these researchers demonstrates that, while classrooms can be shown to have stronger or weaker classification and framing, both classification and framing exist on a continuum with many classrooms having some elements of both strong and weak practices. These power relations within curriculum and pedagogy are referred to broadly in this study as socio-structures with the terms classification and framing used to define specific practices.

Methods

This investigation consists of two case studies of classrooms, conducted over the course of 2 months, from early September to early November. The first author facilitated site-wide Professional Development supporting the use of the Project Approach. The implementation of inquiry methods in two classrooms, the influence of teachers’ perceptions about children in their classroom, and their own understanding of suitable classroom power dynamics were documented.

Setting

This study took place at Bee Head Start,¹ a Head Start program in the Midwestern region of the United States serving children aged 3–5 living in low-income families. From Head Start’s conception as part of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty in 1964, the program has sought to counteract risk factors associated with poverty by providing services that meet children’s social, health, nutritional, and psychological needs, either on-site or by connecting families to social service agencies (Zigler and Bishop-Josef, 2006). Bee has 157 children enrolled in three full-day and six half-day classrooms, each with two teachers and one assistant teacher.

The Head Start grantee (local agency overseeing enactment of the federal program) supervising work at Bee has a long history of implementing the Project Approach in community Head Start programs. Though due to high turnover of teachers, Bee Head Start struggles to maintain an inquiry versus a thematic approach to project work and is continually looking for opportunities for Project Approach–related professional development. The grantee requires that classrooms conduct three projects during a school year (September to May).

Participants

Both case-study classrooms are half-day, with 12–15 children present from 8:00–11:30 a.m. Monday–Thursday. Although two teachers, an assistant teacher, and a volunteer were in the classroom during observations, the primary focus of teacher–child instructional interactions became the morning lead teacher. Other adult participants were observed as well during more global interactions with the class. The two teachers, Hannah (Room 1) and Katie (Room 2), both identify as non-Latina White females between the age of 45 and 54. Each holds an associate degree in Early Childhood Education and has had numerous professional development experiences. Hannah has taught in Head Start sites for 10 years, was a director of a private preschool, and has a bachelor’s degree in early childhood in addition to her associate degree. Katie has been teaching in Head Start and private preschool settings for 20 plus years.

Data sources

Observation functioned as the primary method of data collection for this study. It was supported by a variety of secondary data sources, that is, in-person meetings and project artifacts.

Observations

Sixteen in-class observations across 8 weeks were conducted in each room. Observations during the first week were 60 minutes long in the interest of capturing the newness of the environment (Emerson et al., 2011). Initial observations during the first 2 weeks sought to capture classroom life in each classroom across a range of activities including morning meeting, breakfast, center-time, small group learning engagements, snack, and gross-motor. Observations lasted from 60 to 40 minutes. Subsequent observations became increasingly shorter as it was determined that observations of elements like morning meeting, breakfast, and gross-motor were consistent from day to day. Instead, observations were focused on times set for project work, which does not occur throughout the entire day (Helm and Katz, 2009). The proximity between Room 1 and Room 2 and their opposite schedules for project work made it possible for the researcher to move back and forth between them to observe project work. Observations focused on socio-structures with extra attention given to teacher–child instructional interactions during project and non-project times.

In-person meetings

Informal conversations with no formal interview protocol occurred consistently during and immediately following Project Approach meetings and during recess time. These conversations, on the whole, were not spontaneous. Yet they took varied forms such as project brainstorming and planning sessions, debriefs, coaching, question and answer sessions, and mini-interviews.

Artifacts

Pictures were taken of project charts and webs in progress in addition to other evidence of the project topic and project work in each classroom. Artifacts were used to gauge the use of Project Approach elements as supports for project development. Project work artifacts in some instances provided a physical representation of teacher–child interactions and told the story of how open-ended or narrow tasks were.

Data analysis

Themes were identified through open coding of field notes. Once themes were identified, they were compared with emergent themes within contact summary sheets (CSS). Themes found across field notes and CSS included length and type of language exchanges, child autonomy, flexibility and rigidity of spatial use, rules, and procedures (Miles et al., 2013). The refined emergent themes were then narrowed into focused codes based on occurrence and insight provided into project work and instructional interactions, that is, language modeling. All field notes were then coded using these focused codes in an effort to identify patterns of interactions (Creswell, 2012; Miles et al., 2013).

Bernstein’s categories of strong and weak framing and classification were used to recode data, considering interaction patterns as a means of identifying socio-structural flexibility and rigidity present in the classrooms. The socio-structures identified as having strong or weak classification and framing served in bringing together data from across emergent themes into classroom patterns or customs. Similar coding strategies for locating classroom interactions have been used by Morais (2002) in her work in middle schools in Portugal and by Smith (2015) in her work in early childhood centers in Chicago. In-person meetings and artifacts were reviewed as a means of contextualizing the primary data source findings.

Findings

Environment

Both classrooms had similar provisions in terms of child-sized furniture, resources, and square footage. Teachers and children in both rooms used verbal and nonverbal gestures to stake claims on space including rights of use and new uses.

Explicit messages

Teachers in Room 1 were very direct about how spaces were to be used and by whom, often employing verbal directives. For example, on two occasions, a child sitting down to breakfast at their assigned table was told to move after sitting in a seat that was reserved for a teacher, though it was observed that teachers rarely remained seated at breakfast for periods longer than 2–3 minutes and sometimes did not join breakfast at all. The highly controlled classroom space in Room 1 was indicative of strong hierarchical framing as well as strong classification, as seen in distinct power dynamics and clearly demarked teacher-only spaces and child spaces.

Implicit messages

The flexibly controlled classroom space in Room 2 was representative of weak hierarchical framing—as well as weak classification—as seen in children’s agency in occupying and manipulating spaces. Children in Room 2 were welcomed and invited to explore classroom spaces (weak classification of space), particularly when the use of space supported learning. For example, when José became interested in a measuring tape, he was permitted to stack a chair on top of a tabletop and measure the height of both independently and without seeking adult permission.

Weak classification of space was further observed on a day when Katie rose from her adult-sized chair during whole group time to walk the child reporting on the weather to the window. In the meantime, another child hopped into the chair. Katie had clearly noticed the boy seated in the chair during her 2–3 minutes by the window. However, her gaze did not reveal any displeasure and she continued whole group instruction from her new position near the window.

Instructional interactions

Instructional interactions in each room were analyzed in terms of teacher–child language modeling interactions, as viewed through engagement via reciprocal dialogue, questioning, and feedback. In each room, instructional interactions were considered through academic skills (e.g. identifying shapes or one-to-one correspondence when counting) and intellectual disposition building (e.g. problem solving, collaborating, or self-directed engagement). Instructional interactions that were determined by the teachers or by observational data to be mediated by the project topic were used as the primary focus for analysis.

Engagement

Teachers in Room 1 maintained control of spoken interaction through strong classification of conversational topics and strong hierarchical framing. Teachers in the classroom were very mobile, assuming a monitor-like role during center time often making a comment on the go and moving on before children could answer. In one observation, Hannah crossed the room twice within a few minutes while redirecting behavior or leaving product-based feedback comments in midstride such as “you’re making all the different colors, Amy” and pausing to ask “what part of the apple are you picking it up by?” before naming the stem for the child and walking away without further comment. Children in Room 1 generally experienced low levels of engagement in the form of reciprocal dialogue. Children throughout the observations were observed at various times initiating interactions or new themes that often went unacknowledged in favor of teacher-led conversations.

Interactions with children rarely demonstrated an appreciation of children as autonomous and capable beings. The following is an especially evident example of teachers not recognizing children’s abilities to share information about their lives as well as of strong hierarchical framing. In this example, two teachers stood over a child without addressing her and had the following exchange about marks they saw on her hands:

Ms. Fields:

I think that’s from that holiday yesterday.

Hannah:

Oh maybe.

Ms. Fields:

It’s got a name, that starts with a H.

Hannah:

It’s a … henna tattoo. I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t my markers.

Hannah’s and other teachers’ lack of reciprocal engagement with children sent clear messages that positioned themselves as holders of knowledge and worthy ideas.

In Room 2, engagement was observed during extended (2 minutes or longer) interactions with children, often about child-selected activities. Teachers would engage in activities with children, encouraging the children to extend, improvise, and direct the interaction. This suggests weak hierarchical framing and weaker classification of conversation content.

Questioning

In Room 1, questioning was used most often as a device to gather summative data on academic knowledge and as formative assessments during instructional interactions. Though Room 1 teachers were aware that deeper questioning was part of the Project Approach, they struggled to effectively use questioning during group discussions. For example, during one whole group discussion, Hannah began with a question as a provocation to activate children’s background knowledge. But follow-up questions extended beyond any of the children’s reach in the moment.

Hannah:

Did you know apples grow on grocery shelves?

Many voices:

Nooo, they grow on trees

Hannah (as she looks out the window):

I don’t see them on that tree.

Child:

They come from a seed.

Hannah:

Oh so if I plant an orange seed, I’ll get apples?

Many voices:

NOO, it has to be apple seeds.

Whitney (exasperated):

I don’t know where they come from!

Hannah:

Me either. I wonder who we could ask?

None of the children had the knowledge or experience to answer this final question, thus ending what had been a fruitful discussion. The last question posed by Hannah is an example of a question that, although adequately divergent and open to a range of possible answers, failed to accomplish what it had set out to do. The question was contextually inappropriate for this group of children’s knowledge base during the first week of a topics introduction.

Strong classification and strong hierarchical framing was evident in these interactions as teachers positioned themselves untouchable experts or as co-learners. Hannah exhibited strong control of the position of “knower” and was observed dismissing children’s earnest efforts. This further was demonstrated by her lack of reciprocal conversations with children and disparaging side comments during interactions such as “my two-year-old grandson was going around all summer saying hexagon” in response to a child’s inability to name a shape on command.

Questioning in Room 2 looked quite different and was often used as part of co-problem solving efforts by teacher and children. For example, a boy knocked over the wooden refrigerator in the housekeeping area as he tried filling its shelves with plastic food. Katie helped tip it right side-up. As he went back to filling and food began spilling out again, Katie prompted the boy to rethink his approach by saying “What can you do to make sure it won’t all fall out?” and “How else can we get the food in?” This time, she remained with him as they collaboratively stacked food into the refrigerator as if completing a three-dimensional puzzle as she telecasted the process.

Katie was comfortable in the role of “co-learner,” seen through guided small group activities and many conversations that recast and incorporated the children’s ideas back to them. This suggests weaker classification and weaker hierarchical framing than was present in Room 1.

Teachers’ reciprocal engagement with children sent clear messages that positioned children as constructors of knowledge with worthy ideas. Teachers in Room 2 sought children’s ideas to problem-solve and direct play with explicit questioning such as “Could you tell me what to do not to be scared?” and “How else can we get the food in?”

Rituals and regulations

Classification was considered in this study by the degree of fixedness or flexibility of rituals and routines. All classrooms have rituals and routines that become the customs of the group. When classification and framing are weak, classroom customs are enacted as a shared and accepted group dynamic that may or may not have been explicitly defined. When classification and framing are strong, explicit messages create boundaries between and within classroom customs.

Regulations

Room 1 was highly regulated in terms of when, how, and in what order daily life was experienced and how the environment was used by teachers and children. Whole group time at the beginning of the day was an example of the repetitive nature of routines that were observed in Room 1. From start to finish, the order was always the same. Once the project was launched, a total of three discussions about the topic were held at the end of whole group time for approximately 4–7 minutes each. Hannah shared her displeasure at disruptions to the normal schedule such as when new shelves were delivered. “I don’t like when they bring stuff into our room when we’re doing stuff…I was trying to go with the flow.” These strict boundaries of curriculum and discussions suggest strong classification while the strict pacing of the school day and set hierarchical roles held by teachers and children suggest strong framing.

During center time, rules concerning material migration and number of children at the center were stringently enforced despite spontaneous learning opportunities that may have arisen, revealing the importance set expectations held. Two examples were when a girl was conducting an independent and sustained observation of soapy toys in the sensory table with a magnifying glass from the nearby science center. Hannah reminded the child “that doesn’t belong to that center” and confiscated the magnifying glass. Another example occurred in housekeeping where Ms. Fields was deeply engaged with six girls in dramatic play with babies. The girls and teacher were dressing, feeding, and loving the babies. Hannah approached the center and without addressing Ms. Fields or commenting on the play, began reading names on the housekeeping chart, directing children to “Find your name and take it to the place where you want to play. Only four children at a time in this center.”

Rituals

In Room 2 during whole group, the same instructional elements were present daily but were not prescribed in content. Rather this time was reflective of current and important topics within the class or children’s lives. This suggests weak classification of discourse and curriculum and weak framing indicated through the flexibility of sequencing and pacing and weakened hierarchies. This allowed children in Room 2 to begin regulating their own behavior by having the flexibility to choose and the security of having those choices supported by teachers. Teachers ultimately were responsible as the “more knowledgeable others” in children’s daily experiences at school—a relational responsibility that ensures provisions and protections are enacted alongside child participation.

Project work

In Room 1, the project topic of apples was used as a theme for one learning center and several teacher-led small group activities. In addition, apple themed books, songs, and discussions were featured during whole group. Hannah described activities exclusively in terms of skills or academic objectives when asked directly about activities that incorporated the project topic. During week four of the project, Hannah described the small group activity as follows:

Apple tree matching and identifying apples on a tree to learn shapes, numbers, and colors. The child will pick up an apple and turn over the apple card, then the teacher will ask while another documents. It’s not really…it’s just surrounding them with apples. But, these pictures of apples have leaves and the apples they see at the grocery store usually don’t have leaves, so it’s promoting more for discussion.

Later Hannah added, “We’ll start investigating more, like cutting them. I am the only teacher and Ms. Fields doesn’t stay all day.”

By tightly binding explorations of the project topic and small group activities to discrete assessment objectives (indicating strong classification), Hannah’s ability to allow open explorations of the topic was hindered. Small group activities in Room 1 needed to serve a direct academically focused purpose and needed to maintain the sequencing and pacing that was pre-established by the teaching team. Hannah and her colleagues maintained a strong distinction of when learning occurred as a time when a teacher was leading.

Hannah continued throughout the project to position herself as instructor rather than co-learner, limiting the children’s ability to investigate the project topic deeply. Activities were preselected and used as vehicles to practice and assess fine motor skills and basic “readiness” skills, such as letters, numbers, colors, and shapes, rather than allowing hypotheses about apples to arise from the children and be investigated. During project topic discussions, a slight weakening in hierarchies was seen through the use of some open-ended questions that invited a cross-section of ideas from the children. Though, the overall implementation and culmination of the project was not in keeping with the Project Approach’s learner-centric inquiry foundation.

Children in Room 2 focused their study on bicycles and participated in open explorations at center time during the bike project and in teacher-guided small group activities. Children had opportunities to construct multiple representations and developed questions for expert visitors.

Room 2 teachers planned activities to practice intellectual disposition building and technical and observational skills that children would need for project work before starting the project. One day, Katie invited the children to bring interesting bits of nature into the classroom. In small groups, children observed and drew their selected natural item using pencils, then adding color, and later created three-dimensional representations. During whole group, Katie was observed practicing conversation skills by asking a variety of question types. The variance in questions reflected her careful consideration of whom the question was posed to with follow-up questions that extended upon initial responses.

Children then continued building intellectual dispositions and skills through project work. An example of this was work in the sensory table, in which bicycle parts were set out as an invitation for open-exploration. On one occasion, Jordon had been at the sensory table for about 10 minutes, exploring and washing sprockets, pedals, and other various parts. He became engrossed with scrubbing an adult-sized bicycle rim with a soapy rag. During this time, Phyllis came to the table after another child left. She joined Jordan in his endeavor, using her hands to rub as Jordon rotated the rim without seemingly giving notice to Phyllis. Jordan then crossed to the other side of the table and now facing Phyllis turned the rim so that each child now had their own space and piece of the rim to continue their joint work. Previously children had only been observed working only on the side of the table that faced outward toward the rooms’ action, though there was no established rule. In that moment, Jordan made a choice and took action, in seeing his autonomous thinking through, he was enacting freedom as described by Maxine Greene (1988) or the mind as verb as described by Dewey (1902, 1915/2001). Jordon’s purposeful decision is an example of an intellectual disposition to work collaboratively and seek solutions being built through the joint purpose of project work.

While Room 2 participated in many of the elements of project work that make up a Project Approach project, the key features of developing investigable questions, conducting investigations, and representing the data were not present. A greater level of exploration and child agency around the topic was observed in Room 2, supported by weak classification noted by long periods of child-led exploration of bike parts and guided teacher small group activities. Thus, a well-articulated trans-disciplinary approach to academic learning through a shared inquiry was not fully realized in either classroom. This is symptomatic of novice project work yet the cause and presentation varied between the two classrooms.

Discussion

Ways of seeing

The classrooms studied were not selected based on the divergent qualities that emerged from this study. The classrooms were chosen because they met study criteria of being half-day programs, having comparable numbers of children, and having teachers with similar levels of education. The differences emerged through data analysis. The marked differences in the socio-structures operating in Rooms 1 and 2 existed before this study and still remain. The introduction and implementation of the Project Approach was not an intervention designed to change the power dynamics within these classrooms. Rather, the implementation of the Project Approach served to make visible the pre-existing dynamics of power within these classrooms and to trace their presence and influence on project work. Each room was synchronous in the different modes the messaging system of framing sent, thus establishing clear classification identities that were distinct in each room (Bernstein, 1996). The degree of classification operating in each room was ever present in the framing of socio-structures viewed through teacher–child instructional interactions during project work.

Pedagogical views

With distinctions identified in the degrees of classification and framing in each room and their manifestation during project work examined, the conversation now turns to potential explanations for the differences. Distinct pedagogical practices are often dichotomized along lines of Progressive education or traditional, transmission or inquiry-based, teacher directed or child-centered, synthetic or authentic, holistic or discreet, and so on, with actual classroom interactions/socio-structures falling somewhere along the spectrum of these opposing approaches from day to day. Arendt’s (1954/2006) critical essay is an example of such an argument that looked closely and thoughtfully at education in light of adults’ responsibilities to children and cultural renewal of life. Crisis in Education placed progressive education in America up against the ropes and carried many of the same critiques that Dewey (1938/2015) himself sought to instruct on and eliminate as defining features of Progressive (capital P for Dewey’s brand) education. Both Arendt and Dewey positioned the teacher as a knowledgeable other called to practice a pedagogy of graduated possibility side by side with the learners who are ultimately sources of cultural reproduction and/or production.

All pedagogic practice contains an image of the learner. This image can be located at the core of why and how pedagogic practices are enacted. These whys and how-to often position themselves in terms of efficiency, deficit, and accountability, protecting and buffering the teacher’s image of the learner that is an incognito accomplice to modes of education that reproduce inequalities. Loris Malaguzzi (1994) in a seminar in Reggio Emilia, Italy, posited,

Each one of you has inside yourself an image of the child that directs you as you begin to relate to a child. This theory within you pushes you to behave in certain ways; it orients you as you talk to the child, listen to the child, observe the child. It is very difficult for you to act contrary to this internal image. (p. 1)

Results from this study suggest that Hannah and Katie have very distinct images of children and of children’s roles as agents in their own learning. Hannah’s image of children as receivers of knowledge created a very different attempt at project work than Katie’s image of children as active co-constructors of knowledge. Given the observations in this study, we hypothesize that the kind of co-constructions and deep inquiry necessary for project work are not possible—regardless of the level of available professional development—without also having an image of the child that positions children as protagonists in their own learning.

Documentation as seeing

The strong “image of the child” espoused by the Reggio teachers and pedagogists closely relates to constructivist learning theory, social-cultural theory, and Dewey’s conception of children as competent and central figures in their own learning mediated by the environmental and social conditions of the child’s context. This leads to questions about how images of children come to be and if they are fixed. Furthermore, it suggests new hypotheses, proposing that if teachers had a way to begin seeing children as described above, then perhaps pedagogic practices that produce new knowledge and social dynamics through inquiry would be enacted. We suggest that future work (our own and that of others) consider how inquiry methods, particularly in the early years, when the developmental need for a social-construction of intellectual, academic, and social-emotional knowledge is high, can be enacted effectively.

Limitations

As a case study spanning only 8 weeks of bi-weekly observations, this qualitative work is limited by its broad transferability, as is the nature of intimate views of social phenomena. Classroom selection was limited by the number of suitable classrooms at this site in terms of the logistics of morning or full-day rooms and characteristics such as having a student teacher, years of experience, and training using the Project Approach, teaching team dynamics, and/or number of years as a Head Start teacher. Data and depth of analysis were limited by the lack of focused interview data collected, thus narrowing the study’s ability to consider each teacher’s voice more fully. In addition, this study was limited by the specificity of the school and region that it was situated within. Bee Head Start and the surrounding region has a history of engagement with the Project Approach. The training provided did not introduce a new idea; rather, it built upon and supported existing knowledge. Other studies wishing to use the Project Approach as a vehicle to uncover power dynamics embedded within pedagogical discourse may find teachers having greater or less knowledge than the participants in this study.

Conclusion

Results suggest the variance in these teachers’ implementation of the Project Approach went beyond their perceptions of inquiry-based methods, teaching experience, or ability to design and implement curriculum. This study established the presence of socio-structures exhibiting strong classification and framing in Room 1 and weak classification and framing in Room 2. Evidence does not support any shifts in the degree of classification or framing in either classroom during the project implementation. The only small and brief exceptions were seen in the hierarchical framing in Room 1, as children’s ideas were elicited during three mini-discussions about apples. In each room, curriculum was taught as before either tightly controlled and teacher directed in Room 1 or loosely woven throughout the school day as children participated as co-constructors of knowledge with teachers in Room 2. Instructional interactions viewed through language modeling during project work were also reflective of established socio-structural degrees in each room. Room 1 had low amounts of instructional interactions that contained language modeling in the form of reciprocal conversations that recast, consolidated, or extended children’s ideas, modeled advanced vocabulary, or used open-ended questioning, while Room 2 had high amounts.

The purpose of this study was to begin to establish a relationship between socio-structures and the ability or inability to implement elements of the Project Approach (or similar Progressive, inquiry-based approaches). The use of inquiry-based methods is an alternative pedagogy that repositions the teacher/learner relationship from one of domination (Freire, 1970). It requires the enactment of mutuality, which suggests learners and teachers communicate in a way that meaning is constructed through academic discourse, shared goals are created and adopted, and position is subjective (Wallace and Ewald, 2000). Thus, classrooms that are socio-structurally positioned for children to become collaborators with teachers appear to be fertile grounds for the implementation of inquiry-based projects in the early years.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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