{"title":"Beyond Open-Ended: Tools to Explore Questions and Power during Decision-Making with Families","authors":"Christine L. Hancock","doi":"10.1007/s10643-024-01768-9","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Questions are an essential aspect of decision-making by families and early educators in a range of contexts, and are particularly important during the informal assessment and collaborative planning that characterize home visits. Yet recommendations for questions tend to focus on form alone, such as encouragement to ask open- rather than closed-ended questions. These recommendations have limited practical application because they frame language as decontextualized and power-free, which can contribute to marginalizing families. Instead, when early educators conceptualize questions as part of discourse—rooted in context and imbued with power—they can better understand nuances of questions and ultimately enact shared decision-making with families. This conceptual paper illustrates the potential of discourse theory as a framework to explore questions and their consequences for decision-making power. Linguistic features of questions are presented along with discursive tools adapted from Gee (2014) that researchers and early educators can use to examine how questions contribute to sharing power or maintaining professional control of decisions. Transcripts from previously conducted, ethically approved investigations using discourse analysis exemplify how the tools can be used to examine how questions function in real conversations between families of infants and toddlers and home visitors. The selected transcripts represent four different home visiting programs in the United States and depict how questions played in role in decision-making about how to support children’s development.</p>","PeriodicalId":47818,"journal":{"name":"Early Childhood Education Journal","volume":"207 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Early Childhood Education Journal","FirstCategoryId":"95","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-024-01768-9","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Questions are an essential aspect of decision-making by families and early educators in a range of contexts, and are particularly important during the informal assessment and collaborative planning that characterize home visits. Yet recommendations for questions tend to focus on form alone, such as encouragement to ask open- rather than closed-ended questions. These recommendations have limited practical application because they frame language as decontextualized and power-free, which can contribute to marginalizing families. Instead, when early educators conceptualize questions as part of discourse—rooted in context and imbued with power—they can better understand nuances of questions and ultimately enact shared decision-making with families. This conceptual paper illustrates the potential of discourse theory as a framework to explore questions and their consequences for decision-making power. Linguistic features of questions are presented along with discursive tools adapted from Gee (2014) that researchers and early educators can use to examine how questions contribute to sharing power or maintaining professional control of decisions. Transcripts from previously conducted, ethically approved investigations using discourse analysis exemplify how the tools can be used to examine how questions function in real conversations between families of infants and toddlers and home visitors. The selected transcripts represent four different home visiting programs in the United States and depict how questions played in role in decision-making about how to support children’s development.
期刊介绍:
Early Childhood Education Journal is a professional publication of original peer-reviewed articles that reflect exemplary practices in the field of contemporary early childhood education. Articles cover the social, physical, emotional, and intellectual development of children age birth through 8, analyzing issues, trends, and practices from an educational perspective. The journal publishes feature-length articles that skillfully blend 1) theory, research, and practice, 2) descriptions of outstanding early childhood programs worldwide, and 3) quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research. Early Childhood Education Journal is of interest not only to classroom teachers, child care providers, college and university faculty, and administrators, but also to other professionals in psychology, health care, family relations, and social services dedicated to the care of young children.
Areas of Emphasis:
International studies;
Educational programs in diverse settings;
Early learning across multiple domains;
Projects demonstrating inter-professional collaboration;
Qualitative and quantitative research and case studies;
Best practices in early childhood teacher education;
Theory, research, and practice relating to professional development;
Family, school, and community relationships;
Investigations related to curriculum and instruction;
Articles that link theory and best practices;
Reviews of research with well-articulated connections to the field