Young Children's Working Theories

by

Helen Hedges

• LAST MODIFIED: 28 October 2020
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756810-0259

Introduction: Working Theories in Te Whāriki

Ways children make sense of their lives in their families, communities, and cultures are of immense interest to parents, teachers, and researchers internationally. “Working theories” originated as an holistic outcome of Te Whāriki, the Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) early childhood curriculum (Ministry of Education 1996, Ministry of Education 2017). The term describes the provisional and exploratory ideas and understandings children—and adults—develop as they participate in learning. Working theories help children and adults with meaning making, explanation, prediction, and problem solving. The term therefore has wide educational relevance beyond NZ. Working theories have connections with, but are not the same as, knowledge development or a focus on learning academic concepts. Developing accurate knowledge is not necessarily a goal for young children. In contrast, theories frequently persist in the face of contrary evidence and involve both progression and retrogression in understandings as children attempt to meld new ideas and experiences with their prior, albeit limited, knowledge and experience—rather curiosity and inquiry into personally interesting and meaningful understandings motivates children. More than a focus on cognitive and knowledge development, working theories include all of children’s embodied, linguistic, communicative, and social efforts to learn. The goal of such efforts is to participate and contribute more effectively and competently in their families, communities, and cultures. Consequently, there is an expectation that adults will engage with and support children’s working theory development in respectful, reciprocal, and responsive interactions. Most related literature is at present from NZ; international interest is more recent and growing. Scope for future research includes specific topics of children’s theorizing, especially topics adults might struggle to understand or respond to; ways to document working theories and working theory development over time; exploration and application of Māori concepts and examples given the bicultural aim of Te Whāriki; and ways curriculum might be designed around working theories. The following bibliography has four sections. The first section is literature that has worked on Understanding the Concept of Working Theories. The second section offers examples of working theories from research undertaken with children, adults in teaching roles, and families. The third section describes teacher understandings of the concept of working theories and ways these might drive curriculum, and the fourth section has examples of pedagogical strategies and responses. Naturally there are overlaps between sections 2 through 4 and section assignment does not mean the selected literature does not address material in other sections.

Understanding the Concept of Working Theories

The idea of children as theorizers arose in international research that adopted cognitive constructivist theories and approaches from the late 1980s. Karmiloff-Smith 1988 argued that a child is a spontaneous theoretician, but can rarely articulate theories, an important idea connecting to the multimodal ways children express their theories. Claxton 1990 introduced the notion of minitheories, the precursor to the notion of working theories. He suggested that much knowledge is tacit, and therefore humans find it difficult to articulate the basis of their knowledge and understandings. Theory development is lifelong and not confined to childhood. Claxton proposed that implicit theories come largely from three sources: firsthand experience of the physical world; experiences in the social world; and thirdly, both the explicit and hidden curriculum. Therefore, children’s experiences in early childhood settings are likely to inform their developing theories as they try to understand the world and reveal themselves in the experiences in which they choose to participate. Like many curricular documents internationally, the NZ curriculum document (original, Ministry of Education 1996; revision, Ministry of Education 2017) views children as competent, confident, and capable learners and communicators. Play-based experiences, exploration, and agency are central to curricular provision. The 1996 document identified working theories as one of two indicative learning outcomes (alongside dispositions). The purposes of working theories were for meaning making, explanation, prediction, and problem solving. Further interpretations were open to development through research and practice. The revised curriculum Ministry of Education 2017 benefited from the research and scholarly work undertaken between the two versions. Working theories were defined more clearly and connected more closely with learning dispositions. Claxton’s constructivist ideas were viewed as insufficient in themselves to explain working theories as his ideas focused on individual children rather than learning and meaning making in social and cultural contexts. This section therefore goes on to outline scholarship that has developed definitions, exemplification, and selected theorizing of working theories. A definition adopted by others nationally and internationally from Hedges and Jones 2012 is that working theories “represent the tentative, evolving ideas and understandings formulated by children (and adults) as they participate in the life of their families, communities and cultures and engage with others to think, ponder, wonder, and make sense of the world in order to participate more effectively in it” (p. 36).

• Claxton, G. 1990. Teaching to learn: A direction for education. London: Cassell Educational.

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  Suggests that much knowledge is tacit, therefore difficult to articulate. Implicit theories are not one large coherent body of knowledge, but an assortment of different, piecemeal, fit-for-purpose minitheories used to interpret new information. Sometimes learners just grasp pieces of knowledge regarded as relevant and interesting, without any overall coherence in knowledge or understanding. Over time minitheories become more effective, comprehensive, and appropriate, and eventually connected.

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• Hargraves, V. 2014. Complex possibilities: ‘Working theories’ as an outcome for the early childhood curriculum. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood 15.4:319–328.

  DOI: 10.2304/ciec.2014.15.4.319Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Introduces complexity theory and Deleuzian imagery into informing understandings. Provides examples of children’s theory building about earthquakes that was “non-linear, contingent, associative, and imaginative” (p. 319). Complexity theory enables knowledge to become more expansive. The Deleuzian rhizome invokes an image of thinking as in constant movement in unpredictable directions. Helps explain children’s imaginative expansion of ideas and concepts, many of which are connected with children’s purposes and intentions.

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• Hedges, H. 2012. Vygotsky’s phases of everyday concept development and the notion of children’s “working theories.” Journal of Learning, Culture and Social Interaction 1.2:143–152.

  DOI: 10.1016/j.lcsi.2012.06.001Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Takes a Vygotskian perspective to theorizing using everyday and scientific concepts, the zone of proximal development and mediation. Argues working theories act as a mechanism for developing Vygotsky’s three phases of everyday knowledge and a likely mediating link later between everyday and scientific knowledge. Early childhood education (ECE) settings provide many opportunities for everyday concept development to occur. Describes a breakthrough moment as one when theories become connected and more useful to children.

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• Hedges, H. 2019. Working theories: Children’s curiosity, cognitive development and critical thinking. In Encyclopedia of Teacher Education. Edited by M. A. Peters. Singapore: Springer.

  DOI: 10.1007/978-981-13-1179-6_89-1Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Identifies importance and distinctiveness of the concept in children’s learning and dynamic, ongoing knowledge development. Gives an overview of research and scholarship to date along with examples, and offers pedagogical considerations aligned with sociocultural theory. The most current definition, theorization, exemplification, and overview of pedagogical responses as of 2020; useful for undergraduate and postgraduate students.

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• Hedges, H., and S. Jones. 2012. Children’s working theories: The neglected sibling of Te Whāriki’s learning outcomes. Early Childhood Folio 16.1: 34–39.

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  States that constructivist ideas are insufficient to explain working theories as they focus on individual children rather than meaning making in social and cultural contexts. Draws on sociocultural ideas to develop a definition of working theories, and elaborates on this definition with examples connected with the description in Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education 1996) and the idea of intellectual curiosity. Argues teachers’ deeper understanding will help them to recognize and engage with everyday moments of children’s thinking.

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• Karmiloff-Smith, A. 1988. The child is a theoretician, not an inductivist. Mind & Language 3.3: 183–196.

  DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0017.1988.tb00142.xSave Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Argues that a child is a spontaneous theoretician, but can rarely articulate theories. Theories are built innately, through paying attention to experiences, extrapolating from these, and a combination of the two where new information passes through existing understandings. Theories have explanatory, predictive, and problem-solving powers and are constantly in flux. Sometimes children hold steadfast to theories in the face of contrary evidence as they are not yet linking their theories into coherent concepts.

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• Ministry of Education. 1996. Te Whāriki. He whāriki matauranga mō ngā mokopuna o Aotearoa. Wellington, NZ: Learning Media.

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  Discusses within early childhood curriculum that “. . . working theories contain a combination of knowledge about the world, skills and strategies, attitudes, and expectations” (p. 44). Theories become useful for making sense of the world, problem-solving, reasoning, and further learning. They may “retain a magical and creative quality, and for many communities . . . are infused with a spiritual dimension” (p. 44).

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• Ministry of Education. 2017. Te Whāriki. He whāriki matauranga mō ngā mokopuna o Aotearoa: Early Childhood Curriculum. Wellington: New Zealand Government.

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  Revised description that offers a definition of working theories, and a description of learning environments that foster these: “Working theories are the evolving ideas and understandings that children develop as they use their existing knowledge to try to make sense of new experiences. Children are most likely to generate and refine working theories in learning environments where uncertainty is valued, inquiry is modelled, and making meaning is the goal” (p. 23).

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Examples of Children’s Working Theories

Children are constantly engaged in efforts to understand their worlds. Working theories are present and ongoing in everyday moments, experiences, and events. A multitude of different topics have been revealed through the findings of some studies and through a deliberate topic focus in others. The literature in this section offers insights into this broad range of interests children have about their lives globally. It also provides some insights into how children use working theories to make sense of and test out their interests and ideas about the social, biological, material, and spiritual worlds. The NZ curriculum document includes working theories as an outcome of early childhood education experiences in the strand of exploration: “[Children] develop working theories for making sense of the natural, social, physical, and material worlds” (p. 82), an idea taken up internationally in Hill’s research (see Hill and Wood 2019). Given that children’s goal is meaning making about their worlds in order to participate more effectively, as Peters and Davis 2015 shows, working theories encompass every aspect of human living and ways of knowing and being. Hedges and Cooper 2014 analyzes theories involved in the physical skill of learning to jump, Hedges and Cooper 2017 working theories involved in making and sustaining friendships, and Davis and McKenzie 2017 analyzes theorizing involved in developing identities and participating in cultural events. Children’s interests may also include topics some adults are uncomfortable about and might find difficult to allow children to express and explore, might neglect noticing discourses about, or find challenging to respond to, as Kelly-Ware 2016 and Hill and Wood 2019 elaborate upon. Working theories therefore serve important purposes in ongoing learning and participation, including awareness that children also infer messages related to a hidden curriculum about the acceptability of certain interests. Each study illustrates the importance of teachers and researchers knowing children well, knowing families and cultures, and listening beyond and behind the surface of theories expressed to try to interpret children’s ideas, and identify the connections among those that children are intently making, expressing and acting upon. Most have a focus or framing that assists this interpretation. These framings show that children’s knowledge development is not linear but meanders, sometimes creatively, as they earnestly attempt to connect prior and new experiences in their sense making.

• Davis, K., and R. McKenzie. 2017. Children’s working theories about identity, language, and culture. Wellington, New Zealand: Teaching & Learning Research Initiative.

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  In summary form, a foundational assumption that teachers who notice children’s working theories about identity, language, and culture can work to support and nurture these more strongly. Identifies four types of working theories: making sense of cultural values and practices, making sense of connections, making sense of their cultural selves, and making sense of others. Teachers devised miniprojects to adapt teaching strategies, curriculum, or environment to improve pedagogy and become more culturally responsive and intelligent.

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• Hedges, H., and M. Cooper. 2014. Engaging with holistic curriculum outcomes: Deconstructing “working theories.” International Journal of Early Years Education 22.4: 395–408.

  DOI: 10.1080/09669760.2014.968531Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Important to make working theories visible to stakeholders. A toddler learning to jump and two three-year-olds making crowns while exploring multiple ideas are analyzed as a combination of knowledge about the world, skills and strategies, attitudes, and expectations, where knowledge recognizable as potential academic learning, skills, and strategies; learners’ ways of doing and being that are necessary to build on prior personal experience; and attitudes and expectations are the dispositional and metacognitive components.

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• Hedges, H., and M. Cooper. 2017. Collaborative meaning-making using video footage: Teachers and researchers analyse children’s working theories about friendship. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 25.3: 398–411.

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  As participatory and social beings, humans place emphasis on social activities and connections. Learning to become friends and attain continuity and stability in friendships is a human endeavor. This paper shows the value of video footage in capturing nuances of children’s efforts to be friends, and analyzes two vignettes that identify children’s working theories about friendship making and maintaining use of the knowledge, skills and strategies, and attitudes and expectations framing.

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• Hill, M., and E. Wood. 2019. “Dead forever”: An ethnographic study of young children’s interests, funds of knowledge and working theories in free play. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction 23.

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  Explores children’s peer cultures as sources of interests-related working theory construction and collaboration visible in play. Three themes for children’s interests and working theories are discussed: human nature, social world, and physical and natural world. Focus is on examples of children’s interests in existential matters of life, death, and dying. Uses Vygotskian idea of play as a leading activity to theorize findings.

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• Kelly-Ware, J. 2016. “What’s he doing that for? He’s a boy!”: Exploring gender and sexualities in an early childhood setting. Global Studies of Childhood 6.1: 147–154.

  DOI: 10.1177/2043610615624519Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Argues children explore gender and sexualities in flexible ways that resist dominant norms but that teachers have the power to either empower or police such explorations and understandings. Uses three examples from a four-year-old boy to illustrate examples of gender-related theories, the development of these with teachers and peers, and ways these theories are reinforced or challenged under certain circumstances and the constraints of societal discourses.

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• Peters, S., and K. Davis. 2015. Babies, boys, boats and beyond: Children’s working theories in the early years. In The Routledge international handbook of young children’s thinking and understanding. Edited by S. Robson and S. F. Quinn, 251–261. London: Routledge.

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  Highlights the richness of young children’s ideas, questions adults’ assumptions about these. Identifies wide-ranging interests and related working theories about growing up, gender, babies, properties of water, electrical equipment, good and evil, and rescue activities prompted by a particular event. Adults can grow children’s theories when they listen, relinquish power, enable children to pursue creative and innovative thinking in ideas of interest, and identify the logic connecting children’s theories.

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Teacher Knowledge

Working theories are increasingly recognized internationally as a vital way in which children learn. Consequently, it is critical that adults in teaching roles are knowledgable about what working theories comprise and can work toward placing them centrally in curriculum and pedagogy. The entries in this section explore how matters such as making teacher knowledge and decision making more explicit—and theoretically informed—are matters of international interest. Understanding that working theories are not singularly about children’s knowledge development, but also serve a range of purposes to help children make meaning of their experiences in collaborative interactions with adults and peers, is a first step for teachers. It takes time and sustained professional learning for adults to get to grips with new concepts and develop these beyond practice-based understandings. For example, although Te Whāriki was first published in 1996 (Ministry of Education 1996, cited under Understanding the Concept of Working Theories) it is only recently that some professional learning about working theories has become available in New Zealand. Hence, Hedges 2011 found that teachers relied on understandings of working theories through practice, and viewed these through existing theoretical knowledge and beliefs. Hedges 2014 argues that longstanding theories are relevant to understandings of working theories but can be updated to include more recent ideas and theorizing to develop more complex understandings, and illustrates some of these possibilities. Furthermore, if working theories are to be central to curriculum design then as Wood and Hedges 2016 argues, debates about learning, assessment, curriculum, pedagogy, and outcomes need to be revisited. A longstanding and critical debate in early childhood education has often polarized child-centered and teacher-directed curriculum experiences; Wood and Hedges suggest that focusing on working theories provides a way to place children’s ideas and interests centrally in curriculum while also paying some attention to goals mandated by curriculum documents. Areljung and Kelly-Ware 2016 provides an important reminder of the power that teachers have in determining whether or not children’s working theories are listened to, engaged with, and explored in curriculum planning and interactions. Claxton 1990 (cited under Understanding the Concept of Working Theories) idea that working theories are lifelong and develop through experience and knowledge are recognized in this section with the inclusion of Haworth, et al. 2006 and Murray and Clark 2013 who use the term to describe teachers’ understandings of their own work.

• Areljung, S., and J. Kelly-Ware. 2016. Navigating the risky terrain of children’s working theories. Early Years: An International Research Journal 37.4: 370–384.

  DOI: 10.1080/09575146.2016.1191441Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Explicitly explores power relations involved in pedagogical decisions and actions, with power viewed as whether teachers value and reify working theories, and when and if they give them time to be shared and develop over time. Risk is defined as touching on sensitive subjects or difficult knowledge, extended to include lack of teacher subject knowledge, creating an unpleasant atmosphere for children, and reducing children’s ability to think creatively. Illustrated through four vignettes.

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• Haworth, P., J. Cullen, H. Simmons, L. Schimanski, P. McGarva, and E. Woodhead. 2006. The flight of our kite: Final report: Wycliffe Nga Tamariki Kindergarten. Napier, NZ: Napier Kindergarten Association.

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  Used the term ‘working theories’ to describe teachers’ evolving understandings and responses to research-generated learning about children’s friendships, literacy, and language development. Children need to revisit their learning; teachers to move intuitively between co-construction and scaffolding and integrate all resources available across the curriculum; and teachers and learners to have fun while learning, while teachers ask more open questions of the children to ensure their interests lead the way.

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• Hedges, H. 2011. Connecting “snippets of knowledge”: Teachers understandings of the concept of working theories. Early Years: An International Journal of Research and Practice 31.3: 271–284.

  DOI: 10.1080/09575146.2011.606206Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Largely overlooked in their teacher education, teachers nonetheless had some experience and practice-based understandings of working theories. An idea understood by all was that working theories involved snippets of knowledge and information. Teaching strategies included responding to, extending, and complicating theories. A lack of emphasis in documentation was rationalized. Attempts to increase teacher understandings had limited success due to embedded existing theoretical knowledge and few opportunities for ongoing professional learning.

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• Hedges, H. 2014. Young children’s “working theories”: Building and connecting understandings. Journal of Early Childhood Research 12.1: 35–49.

  DOI: 10.1177/1476718X13515417Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Drawing on sociocultural perspectives connects working theories, participation, inquiry, thinking, and intellectual curiosity. States that theories are tentative and speculative, open to revision, and may involve imaginative and inventive ideas and resourcefulness. Uses examples to show children inquiring into serious and meaningful issues related to their place in their worlds. Suggests Wells’ spiral of knowing (Dialogic inquiry: Towards a sociocultural practice and theory of education. New York: Cambridge University Press [1999]) is helpful to understanding learning as dynamic, interpretive, and incremental.

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• Murray, J., and R. M. Clark. 2013. Reframing leadership as a participative pedagogy: The working theories of early years professionals. Early Years 33.3: 289–301.

  DOI: 10.1080/09575146.2013.781135Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  In reframing leadership, used the term ‘working theories’ to describe ways participants drew on ideas about leadership stemming from longstanding early childhood philosophy, values, and pedagogy rather than position or authority. Viewing leadership as collaborative and community oriented led to a more participative pedagogy emphasizing relationships and a commitment to children’s education and well-being.

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• Wood, E., and H. Hedges. 2016. Curriculum in early childhood education: Critical questions about content, coherence, and control. The Curriculum Journal 27.3: 387–405.

  DOI: 10.1080/09585176.2015.1129981Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Contrasts two positions from which to understand curriculum content, coherence, and control. Proposes a third position that focuses on working theories offers alternatives for informing curriculum theory and practice as these retain children at the center of both, and resist normative and readiness discourses through highlighting the dynamic and unpredictable nature of learning and associated curriculum. Content is then addressed in creative and responsive rather than prescribed ways.

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Teacher Pedagogy

Placing working theories centrally in curriculum design, as a framework for pedagogy or as an overarching outcome of children’s early childhood experiences globally, means that adults in teaching roles need a range of pedagogical strategies to engage with and respond to children’s interests and theorizing. This section includes Hedges and Cullen 2012, which argues for a new framing for pedagogy. The section outlines a broad range of responses specific to particular studies but that are also transferable to other interactions and contexts on the premise that adults know children well. Empowering children to express theories in multiple ways, inquire, puzzle over, critique, reform, and reframe their many theories can be a challenging part of teaching. Davis and Peters’ work (Davis and Peters 2011a, Davis and Peters 2011b) demonstrates that such empowerment requires positive and warm relationships, where teachers know children and families well; utilize a range of pedagogical strategies appropriate to children, topic, and context; and avoid ‘hijacking’ interests through surface understandings, misunderstandings, or a desire to divert to academic learning. Peters, et al. 2018 and other authors such as Hargraves 2014, Lovatt 2014, and Lovatt and Hedges 2015 have explored and explicated further teaching roles, and pedagogical strategies and approaches to empower, encourage, and extend children’s development and expression of working theories within teacher responses and curricular provision. As noted in the introduction, scope for future research internationally that can be added to this bibliographic entry includes specific topics of children’s theorizing and related pedagogical considerations—especially topics of local and global interest—and topics adults might struggle to understand or respond to; ways to document working theories and working theory development over time; and ways curriculum might be designed around working theories.

• Davis, K., and S. Peters. 2011a. Moments of wonder, everyday events: Children’s working theories in action. Teaching and Learning Research Initiative.

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  Key strategies include: listening carefully so theories are not hijacked through language or follow-up activities, photos and videos to revisit and enrich theories, family notebooks to share theories between home and center, adults modeling curiosity, being open to creative ways of knowing, and using wait time. The report also discusses provoking, inspiring, questioning, power shifts, intentional changes to an environment, and being prepared to judge what working theories might be also important.

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• Davis, K., and S. Peters. 2011b. Exploring learning in the early years: Working theories, learning dispositions and key competencies. In Understanding teaching and learning: Classroom research revisited. Edited by B. Kaur, 171–182. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense.

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  Notes attempts to achieve intersubjectivity are difficult because an adult needs to interpret children’s interests and theorizing, which is exemplified with a four-year-old child’s theory about ways bees make honey—despite a long and rich discussion with one adult, another hijacks the interaction to connect it with early numeracy. Authors also note that hijacking occurs when follow-up activities to explore theories respond to a surface rather than deep understanding of an interest.

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• Hargraves, V. 2014. Children’s theorising about their world: Exploring the practitioner’s role. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood 39.1: 30–37.

  DOI: 10.1177/183693911403900105Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Detailed vignette of working theories about earthquakes. Argues from a complexity theory perspective that knowledge is a constantly adapting phenomenon that becomes more expansive. Suggests four pedagogical strategies under two themes: “focusing in,” centering on a theme, and supporting the visibility of ideas; and “stretching out,” providing a context for sharing ideas, and extending the breadth and depth of theorizing in progress.

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• Hedges, H., and J. Cullen. 2012. Participatory learning theories: A framework for early childhood pedagogy. Early Child Development and Care 182.7: 921–940.

  DOI: 10.1080/03004430.2011.597504Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Argues for a “participation plus” model of pedagogy as participation invites alternate conceptions of outcomes that contest traditional academic or developmental ones. As an outcome, working theories combine processes of learning and innovative knowledge construction. While continuing to encourage choice, inquiry, initiative, identity, and independence, teachers need to think differently about designing educational environments. In teacher pedagogy, being intentional and responsive requires sophisticated understandings of children, learning, and pedagogy.

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• Lovatt, D. 2014. How might teachers enrich children’s working theories? Getting to the heart of the matter. Early Childhood Folio 18.1: 28–34.

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  A specific example examined: children’s theories about purposes, characteristics, and features of hearts and blood in humans and animals. Use of a stethoscope and a visit to a local medical center enabled teachers to gently challenge and develop understandings toward more conceptual accuracy. Stresses the importance of teachers knowing children well to know when to sensitively challenge theories and related knowledge, and use a combination of the strategies discussed.

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• Lovatt, D., and H. Hedges. 2015. Children’s working theories: Invoking disequilibrium. Early Child Development & Care 185.6: 909–925.

  DOI: 10.1080/03004430.2014.967688Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Draws on Piagetian concepts of equilibrium and disequilibrium to explain changes in children’s thinking. Identifies six teaching strategies used during sustained dialogue to provoke disequilibrium: facilitating inquiry and focusing a conversation; summarizing children’s ideas and thinking, adopting a tentative tone; using open-ended questions to clarify thinking; presenting new information; modeling inquiry and information-seeking approaches; and using resources. The Vygotskian concept of mediation provides a theoretical foundation for understanding the combination of strategies.

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• Peters, S., and K. Davis. 2011. Fostering children’s working theories: Pedagogic issues and dilemmas in New Zealand. Early Years 31.1: 5–17.

  DOI: 10.1080/09575146.2010.549107Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Pedagogic issues and dilemmas: First selecting which theories to develop, focused on substantive theories; second, children’s questions often opening a conversation to share theorizing rather than seek information; third, if theories appeared stable and resisted input, questioning as to whether they were still “working”(adults felt discomfort about appearing to allow inaccuracies); and fourth, unintentional hijacking of theory development. Recommends subtle changes in interactions and environment to allow spaces for uncertainty.

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• Peters, S., K. Davis, and R. McKenzie. 2018. Children’s ‘working theories’ as curriculum outcomes. In The child’s curriculum: Working with the natural voices of young children. Edited by C. Trevarthen, J. Delafield-Butt, and A. Dunlop, 296–311. London: Oxford Scholarship Online.

  DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198747109.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Offers four key points for adults: to listen carefully to the ways young children can and do think, and wonder, about the world around them; to form a repertoire of strategies that help, rather than hinder, the development of thinking; to create authentic learning opportunities for young children that are interest-focused; and to raise concerns about power and choices that adults make around which theories are listened to, explored, and developed.

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