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ERIC Number: EJ1467791
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025
Pages: 12
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1350-293X
EISSN: EISSN-1752-1807
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Engaging Children in "What-If" Thinking through Read-Aloud Conversations in Early Childhood Education for Sustainability
European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, v33 n2 p211-222 2025
This study presents the research that Pramling Samuelsson's keynote at the 32nd annual EECERA conference in Brighton 2024 drew upon. The study addresses an important but understudied feature of early childhood education and care for sustainability (ECECfS), namely engaging children in prospective or what-if thinking. Our reasoning is founded on Vygotskian theorizing on the inherent and dynamic relationship between imagination and real-life experiences, and on distinctions from Play-Responsive Early Childhood Education and Care (PRECEC) between culturally conventional knowing (as is), transformation into play (as if), and changing a premise and thinking about the potential and/or actual consequences of this change (what if). How the latter mode of thinking comes into play and is responded to in read-aloud conversations are analyzed. It is argued that engaging in what-if thinking, implying imagining other possibilities, and thinking about what it would or could entail -- and in extension how to work towards realizing that alternative -- constitutes a critical addition to empirically grounded theorization of ECEC for sustainability.
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Early Childhood Education; Preschool Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Sweden
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1Department of Education, Communication and Learning, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden