Teaching Practices in Early Childhood Educational Settings in Victoria and the Development of Children’s Agency: A Cultural-historical Analysis

This doctoral research studies how teaching practices support the process of agency development in pre-school-aged children in early childhood settings in Victoria, Australia. Through interviews with teachers and onsite classroom observations of teaching practices, this study proposes an agency-growth pedagogy with a theory explaining how child agency develop across four stages sustainably in everyday contexts and an instructive guide with a collection of 15 teaching strategies to equip practitioners’ teaching toolkit. As the first research focusing on the developmental trajectory of child agency using cultural-historical theory, this study contributes new knowledge to the field of teaching, research and policy.