(Re)theorising More-than-parental Involvement in Early Childhood Education and Care

This open access book provides a critical, thought-provoking, and stimulating overview of theories applied worldwide to conceptualise collaborations between early childhood education and children's families. The book starts with a critical reflection on the colonial undertones of parental involvement (PI) and acknowledges a strong political will to improve this aspect of early childhood education and care. The chapters in the book describe and discuss various theories, including the cultural historical wholeness approach, Bronfenbrenner's ecology of human development, the theory of social capital, the theory of collaboration, family-school partnership models proposed by Epstein and Hornby, Bourdieu's social theory, the theory of practice architectures, the discourse/narrative theory, and posthumanism. By proposing the concept of more-than-parents, the authors aim to embrace both the diversity of intergenerational family configurations and the agency of materiality, artifacts, and the involvement of more-than-human actors. .

Chapter 1. Why a (re)theorisation of more-than-parental involvement in ECEC is needed? (Alicja R. Sadownik) -- Chapter 2. Mapping the theoretical landscape of more-than-parental involvement (Alicja R. Sadownik) -- Chapter 3. Cultural-historical wholeness approach: critical activity settings of more-than-parental involvement (Alicja R. Sadownik) -- Chapter 4. Bronfenbrenner: ecology of human development in ecology of collaboration (Alicja R. Sadownik) -- Chapter 5. Together, we can do more for our children. ECEC’s collaboration with families in light of social capital theory (Adrijana Višnjić Jevtić) -- Chapter 6. Models of family -school partnership: Who is in power when we care for the children we share? (Adrijana Višnjić Jevtić) -- Chapter 7. Collaboration theory: ECEC leading families to lead their own partnerships with ECEC (Adrijana Višnjić Jevtić) -- Chapter 8. Parental involvement (mis)recognised by Bourdieu’s conceptual toolkit: illusio, doxa, habitus, and capitals (Alicja R. Sadownik) -- Chapter 9. Theory of practice architectures: Parental involvement through sayings, doings, and relatings (Alicja R. Sadownik) -- Chapter 10. Theories of discourse (on quality) and narrative inquiry (Alicja R. Sadownik) -- Chapter 11. Posthumanism: Intra-active entanglements of parental involvement embracing Indigenous ontologies and sustainable being in the world (Alicja R. Sadownik). Chapter 12. (Re)theorization of more-than-parental involvement: New directions and hopes (Alicja R. Sadownik).