Research Around the World

 European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA)) is a non-profit organization.  It is an independent, self-governing, international association which promotes and disseminates multi-disciplinary research on early childhood and its applications to policy and practice.

Some of the current international research topics include:

·         Transitions

·         Integrated Leadership & Management

·         Professionalism

·         Young Children’s Perspectives

·         Learning and Participation

·         Mathematics

·         Birth to Three

·         Outdoor Play and Learning

·         Diversity

Surprising facts/insights/new ideas gained from the website.

I realized that EECERA has the largest and most significant early years' research conference in Europe attracting more than 600 researcher delegates from all over the world.  The Special Interest Group (SIG) is like the watch dog organization that advocates rigorously on behalf of early childhood. They play a very significant role in the organization.

It is clear that researchers have reasons to be excited about what they do.  Indeed! motivation goes a long way.  At the annual conference carded for September 2011, included in the agenda is the distribution of awards in order to:

• To encourage excellence and the highest standards of scholarship and ethical research practice in published research.

• To help researchers to improve the quality of their published research work by example.

 This is great because it indicates to me that many researchers are passionate about what they do and as such they are always seeking to be on the innovative path which in the long run redounds to the good of everyone in the field.  In addition, support is available and that speaks to the issue scaffolding which is influenced by the work of Vygotsky’s (1978) conception of the zone of proximal development - the distance between the actual developmental level and the level of potential development one can attain with expert assistance (Lajoie, 2005).

Other noteworthy information available on website

One of the reasons why success is not reserved only for persons with extremely high IQ is because many persons and organizations have made available to all and sundry the attributes needed to succeed at any task and EECERA is not excluded.  They have made available on their website guidelines for writing an editorial.  I found the following two guidelines quite interesting.  They are:

·         Lead with a paragraph that captures the reader’s attention and provides a background to the article.

·         Conclude by tying everything together and leaving the reader with food for thought.

These tips reminded me of the letters we wrote to the editor in our  EDUC 6161- Effective Programs and Practices.  These tips are worth examining because as advocates for young children, families and the field of early childhood they can provide us with ideas that can improve our level of persuasiveness.  

Reference

European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA)
http://www.eecera.org/

Lajoie, S.P. (2005). Extending the scaffolding metaphor. Instructional Science: An Internal Journal of Learning and Cognition. Vol. 33. No 5-6.