Beyond pedagogical intention: exploring more-than-human entanglements in early childhood education and care.
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| Title: | Beyond pedagogical intention: exploring more-than-human entanglements in early childhood education and care. |
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| Authors: | Liu, Bonan1 (AUTHOR) bonan.liu@uni-muenster.de |
| Source: | Ethnography & Education. Oct2025, Vol. 20 Issue 4, p362-378. 17p. |
| Subject Terms: | *Early childhood education, *Storytelling, Anthropocentrism, Ethnology research, Social processes, Transcendence (Philosophy) |
| Geographic Terms: | China, Nanjing (Jiangsu Sheng, China) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores how Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) can be understood as a space consisting of human and more-than-human entanglements. Moving beyond traditional anthropocentric perspectives, it examines how children, animals, objects, and environments intra-act within educational settings. Drawing on an ethnographic story from a kindergarten in Nanjing, China, the study adopts storytelling as a methodology to trace the dynamics triggered by a street cat's unexpected entry. Using the ontological concept of entanglement, the paper rethinks how ECEC boundaries are continually negotiated between human and more-than-human actors. The findings highlight how more-than-human elements are selectively included or excluded through situated boundary-making processes. Storytelling, as both an analytic and representational practice, offers a way to engage with the complexities of relational life in ECEC, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of the fluid, co-constitutive relations shaping educational spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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| Database: | Education Research Complete |
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| Abstract: | This paper explores how Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) can be understood as a space consisting of human and more-than-human entanglements. Moving beyond traditional anthropocentric perspectives, it examines how children, animals, objects, and environments intra-act within educational settings. Drawing on an ethnographic story from a kindergarten in Nanjing, China, the study adopts storytelling as a methodology to trace the dynamics triggered by a street cat's unexpected entry. Using the ontological concept of entanglement, the paper rethinks how ECEC boundaries are continually negotiated between human and more-than-human actors. The findings highlight how more-than-human elements are selectively included or excluded through situated boundary-making processes. Storytelling, as both an analytic and representational practice, offers a way to engage with the complexities of relational life in ECEC, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of the fluid, co-constitutive relations shaping educational spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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| ISSN: | 17457823 |
| DOI: | 10.1080/17457823.2025.2514751 |
