Research Around the World

 A Continuation of Sharing Web Resources
International Research Topics

 There are many current topics of research published in the Early Childhood Australia's ECE WebWatch online news journal.  

• What parents consider to be high quality childcare.  This research was conducted through a survey.  Surprising to me was that only 22% listed quality education as important.  52% said the relationship between the child their family and the educators was the most important. 
• Research has been conducted through the University of Canberra t discover whether children in urban settings could identify which food products are a result of farming, and whether they are plant or animal products.  This was done revolving around where they believed yoghurt was from.
• Students from wealthier backgrounds tend to perform according their genetic abilities, children from lower SES can achieve more when they are enrolled in early childhood services. 
• Research on domestic violence and children examines the motives and backgrounds to 'filicide' - parents who kills their children. 
• Preventing childhood obesity - what kinds of interventions will prevent and counter childhood obesity and the associated problems with health and wellbeing.

 These are just a few of the current research topics offered in through Early Childhood Australia.  More on these topics and others can be found at ECA WebWatch.

Surprising facts/ insights/ new ideas from ECA  

 The international Criminal Court began it's work in 2002 and has just had it's first conviction of a warlord enlisting boys and girls under the age of 15 for war.  This sends a strong message that the rights of children are recognized internationally, and people who abuse children will be identified and punished.
Congolese Warlord Convicted, in First for International Court

The government in Australia is taking a strong stand with families with young children.

• Offering dad's two weeks paid parental leave
• Rebate incentive for families hiring nanny's
• Investing in parenting centers 

New Ideas for partnering with families can be found through their website with the use of their online learning video series Partnering with Parents.  This is just one of many available videos.  I found this one very useful. 

Noteworthy Information

Beginning this year 2012 there is a new early childhood reform act in Australia and many changes are being made there to improve their early childhood programs and services.  This will take place over the next several years.  I am a subscriber of their webwatch online journal and I was highly recommend a subscription to it.  It doesn't cost anything and is very informative of events there and around the world.  This is also noted on the sidebar of this blog under expanding web resources and at the link below.
January 2012 - Media Release - Biggest reform of Australian childcare begins today

Research Benefits for Children and Families -- An Uplifting Story

About Fourteen years ago a cousin of mine was born with a "hole in her heart", this is medically defined as a congenital heart defect.  It basically means that there is a defect in the wall between two of the heart chambers.  This is not uncommon and babies are born with this defect all the time.  There are different sizes of holes and this determines how it may be fixed.  In some instances the hole may close on it's own as the child get older.  (This has been linked to genetics.) 

A little over 50 years ago, her father's brother was also born with a congenital heart defect.  At that time in 1951 there was nothing that could be done for this condition.  Parents, (my great aunt and uncle) were told to not let them get active.  They were basically left on bed rest most of the time.  According to my dad, there were many trips to the hospital. They lived in a small town where the nearest hospital was in St. Louis, MO.  They had a pediatrician that came to the home regularly to see about him.  His heart eventually gave out from this condition, and he passed away at the age of 9 in 1961.
 His brother's daughter, whom I mentioned at the beginning, was also born with this condition many years later.  At this point open heart/"beating heart surgeries" had become somewhat routine.  Due to the research from the 1950s to the mid 1980s early 1990s, the congenital heart defect his daughter was born with was able to be repaired.  The doctors were able to go in through her foot to repair the hole.  She is now a healthy striving, sports playing fourteen year old preparing for life in high school.

Through the many years of open heart research there were many failed attempts at repairing the heart.  There were many times they thought they had it, but were actually failed attempts.  Several patients lives were extended, but very few surgeries had lasting affects until the 1990s.   I am sure during this time there were risks in the research on children.  However, now because of the risks parents took with other children before her took, there are children like my cousin who go on to lead normal lives.  

More research related to this topic and other topics on the heart in children can be found at www.childrensheartfoundation.org

My Personal Research Journey

This assignment has been a difficult one for me to take on.  I have so many topics that I am interested in when it comes to early childhood education.  As I have mentioned before, when I set out to be a teacher I was not in the field of Early Childhood, but rather Elementary Education.  My passion since beginning in Early Childhood education as a Pre-k teacher has grown tremendously.  The subtopic I will be focusing on for my simulations in the following weeks will be families involvement in the Early Childhood environments and educational process.   This year I was given the challenge of working with a Hispanic child and her family.  Through my personal work with them, the other families in my class, and previous class learning I have become more familiar with the importance of making families feel welcome and wanted.  Through this simulation process I hope to learn more about this topic.

Simulation Process..... is a work in progress

I am nervous about this process and praying I can find my way through it.  It is similar to research papers I have done in the past.  The research chart was a bit trying for me, I have always had trouble putting things into my own words.  I believe it is because sometimes I have enough trouble trying to understand what is being said.  At first I was unsure if this was suppose to be from the text book or actually about our own research, so that left me feeling confused.   I hope it was from the textbook, if I'm not correct I would really appreciate someone letting me know.  Even though it may put me behind.  One thing I gained was that of making a folder on the computer to store research articles.  This was a helpful suggestion I found from the text Ch.2.    I have them in two places.  I have a folder on my desktop and I also have a folder in the ESBO library. This is where you can folder any articles you look at through Walden Library.  It keeps you from having to remember where an article is and how you found it.  Also, in searching on the library site I have found it helpful to use more then one Database at a time to search.  You will get more of a variety of results.  On the what type of research will I do section of the text.  I want to think I am more inclined to use triangulation as a research approach.

Open for Suggestions

I have fretted over this and I know I am not alone, which is comforting.  I would love to hear suggestions about where to look for research on this topic.  I love personal experience conversations, first hand knowledge has always inspired me.   I know we are all searching and I hope I can be of help to everyone by sharing some of my experiences in this field.

By the grace of God and working with the wonderful classmates I have come to know, I know that nothing is impossible.  Everything that I do is to make a difference in education and the lives of families and children.  That makes it worth it!