PhD - 2 Curious: More Than Words

New Government funding offers places to 'disadvantaged' two-year-olds in nursery classes, responding to the widening achievement gap for children from low-income families at the start of formal schooling, and increasing anxiety related to language and literacy acquisition (Save the Children, 2016, Ofsted 2012, Bercow, 2008). Assessment, planning, and data is becoming central for early years practitioners whose performance is judged in relation to progress children make in what is seen as a critical year for successful school life. This has lead to a proliferation of deficit-oriented interventions that are either aimed at changing parent-child interaction (by increasing spoken interaction and vocabulary), or classroom intervention strategies. However, there is little research to provide evidence about what a rich foundation for language skills might look like for two-year olds in classes (Georgeson, J et al, 2014). A growing body of scholarship emphasises young children's literacy practices as entangled meaning-making with and through place, their bodies, and the objects they encounter (Pahl, 2002, Wolhwend, 2009, Hackett, 2014, Somerville, 2015). This emphasis on the moving body and materiality contrasts with word-deficit approaches.

Visual and non-linguistic research methods, including collaboration with artists (Barone and Eisner, 2011), have played a central role in developing understandings of the non-representational within aspects of children's learning and experience (Huuki and Renold, 2016; Olsson, 2013; Otterstad and Waterhouse, 2016). Dance practices have also been used to theorise how movement constitutes the world, drawing on Deleuze and Guattaris' notion of absolute movement (Lenz Taguchi et al, 2016; Manning,2013; Olsson, 2009). However, whilst there is some work looking at performance to support children with autism (Shaughnessy and Trimingham, 2016), and approaches such as Write Dance to facilitate mark making (Oussoren, 2010), the potential for performance arts coupled with young children's literacy and language practices remains strikingly under explored.

Research questions:
How might movement-based arts practice (dance, theatre, puppets, music) contribute to pedagogic practice with two year olds in ways that support language, literacies and communication?
What is the potential of non-representational, embodied and material performance practices as emergent forms of knowledge for 2 year olds?

This doctorate addresses the intersection between performance arts practice and literacy pedagogies for two year olds in early years classrooms. The collaboration between the doctoral student, Curious Minds (Bridge Organisation to enable creative collaboration between the cultural and education sectors, and to create access to the arts and culture for all children and young people), Manchester Metropolitan University, and creative practitioners, brings together theory with early years literacy research and performance practice to address the sticky problem of the early years language gap (Avineri et al, 2015) in a novel way. Central to the collaboration is the aim of bringing together complementary lenses or 'ways of knowing' related to emergent literacies, the body and two year olds. The intention is that by using an innovative methodological approach, academic and linguistic ways of knowing will be decentred in favour community knowledge (Campbell and Lassiter, 2015) and practice-based knowledge (Nelson, 2013). Thus, the collaboration aims to create an experimental and immersive space that flattens expert and professional knowledge in favour of more local ways of knowing.