Learning from Children in Early Childhood
A Year in the Lives of Young Friends
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd
Publishing:31st Aug '26
£29.99
This title is due to be published on 31st August, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
This book explores the social lives of preschoolers, exploring how they navigate friendship, conflict, and belonging throughout the school year. Through a collection of vivid stories children shared from their own perspectives, plus a thoughtfully curated collection of children’s visual work, this book highlights the richness and complexity of children’s relational pursuits, including how they both navigate tension and express deep desires for connection in the early years of school.
Drawing from critical childhood studies and informed by children’s right to voice, the book encourages readers to both respect children’s agency and strive to understand their diverse childhood experiences. This story of three boys—each with unique personalities but united by a strong desire to be friends—offers a powerful lens into the multiplexity of social and emotional development. Their challenges and struggles, resolutions and reconnections, challenge traditional ideas and ideals of what healthy social growth can look like, prompting educators to rethink what it means to foster emotional and relational well-being.
Learning from Children in Early Childhood: A Year in the Lives of Young Friends is key reading for educators, researchers, and students interested in children’s social lives, relational worlds and emotional development. It offers insights for those seeking to create inclusive, responsive environments that center children’s perspectives and experiences.
"A beautifully written and compelling journey into the complex social worlds of young children, Ron Grady explores how play binds and connects children with materials, space, and one another throughout the school year. Continuing the legacy of Vivian Paley, the book makes central the voices and stories of children—from birthdays to battles, through celebrations to conflicts. It is a powerful reminder for adults to listen to children and attune to the seasonal shifts of the year, the rhythms of school days, and the rituals that mark out their experiences."
Haeny Yoon, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education, Director, Early Childhood Programs, Teachers College, Columbia University
"In this respectful, lovingly rendered account of the year he spent learning from and with young children about the power, challenges, and pleasures of their friendships, Ron Grady captures and contemplates the richness and complexities of children’s talk, play, and relationships. Grady’s humility, genuine curiosity, and caring consideration are abundantly evident throughout his insightful commentary. Through his meticulous descriptions and thoughtful reflections, Grady kindly and gently guides readers to notice, wonder about, and appreciate how children make sense of the world, engage with each other, co-create knowledge, and grow together."
Judy Y. Chu, Ed.D.,Author of When Boys Become Boys: Development, Relationships, and Masculinity
"In this beautifully written and executed ethnography Ron Grady captures an inside view of the evolving friendship of three preschool boys over the course of a year. The analysis is insightful, exciting, and endearing. We see how their friendship with its conflicts, challenges and joys is embedded in the more general life of the preschool with their peers, teachers, and the researcher. In many ways groundbreaking in the honesty and modesty of its scope, we should expect major work ahead from Grady on the wonders of early childhood"
William A. Corsaro, Professor Emeritus, Department of Sociology, Indiana University, Bloomington and author of We’re Friends, Right? Inside Kids’ Culture and The Sociology of Childhood, 6th edition
ISBN: 9781041094197
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
186 pages