Theory-informed beliefs in early childhood education: contradictions in child development theories and models of play

Theory-informed practice has a long tradition within the profession of early childhood education in Australia and internationally. Aligned with longstanding policy and curriculum in Australia, the profession has seen a prominence of resources informed by biological, behaviourism/socio-behaviourist, social learning, psycho-genetic, cultural-historical, critical and poststructuralist theories. Despite the plethora of theories being supported within early childhood education and care, little research has been directed to determining if and how educators use theory to inform their play practices. This paper takes up the challenge by surveying 200 Australian early childhood educators about the theories that were most relevant to their practices and the models of play that informed their day-to-day work in centres. Higher qualified educators were informed most by cultural-historical theory whilst technically qualified educators were more guided by social learning theory. Playwork was the model of play found to be most familiar to all educators. However, the results also show a limited alignment between theories of learning and development and models of play, suggesting an interesting contradiction in understandings of educators that is worthy of further research.