Evidence-Informed Practice in Early Years Education

Evidence-Informed Practice in Early Years Education addresses a gap in the literature of early years education and pushes the field to think in new ways about practice development in early years settings. By providing a critical analysis of the direction of policy aspirations in early years, and investigating the lack of attention to the professional learning needs of the workforce, the book offers some possible solutions to ensure a sustainable and skilled labour force for the future.

Specifically, the book aims to:






theorise the concept of expertise in relation to early years practice;



understand better the nature of expertise in early years educational settings and its relationship to different forms of pedagogical practice;



understand better the processes by which early years educators come to know about and engage with research evidence;



offer a novel theoretical approach to understanding how expertise is developed and sustained through continuing professional learning and the networks this engenders;



help to connect research evidence to practice in early years education in order to develop expertise.

The book is at the cutting edge of policy and practice development, bringing together in new and innovative ways two distinctive academic fields: early years education and research-use in practice. It captures the complexity and diversity of the early years sector, foregrounds the challenges it faces and suggests how expertise might be developed in the early years workforce in order to ensure positive outcomes for children through innovative approaches to professional learning.

A ground-breaking and original contribution to the field, this book will be of interest to early years practitioners and leaders, research scholars, postgraduate students and education policy-makers.