Peer-reviewed article
Reflexivity in early childhood education: Reflections on interactions
Katja Zehbe, Ina Kaul ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This article examines the concept of pedagogical reflexivity in early childhood education through a literature review and document analysis. It explores how reflexivity relates to professional development and the examination of one's own practice and biases. The paper questions disciplinary contexts and discusses reflection as knowledge work. However, it does not evaluate interventions or measure outcomes for children's well-being.
Key points
- Pedagogical reflexivity is central to early childhood education but remains poorly understood and applied
- Reflexivity involves multi-perspectival examination of biographical development and social organizational frameworks
- Questions about how to develop reflexivity in practice remain largely unanswered
- Reflection is understood as knowledge work
- Reflexivity and professionalization interact with each other
Limitations
This is a theoretical and conceptual paper based on literature review, not an empirical study. It does not measure impacts on children's outcomes or well-being, focusing instead on educator professional development and practice.
Abstract
Pedagogical reflexivity is a central tenet of early childhood education. Yet understanding of the concept and its focus on the intensive and multi-perspectival examination of one’s own biographical development is elusive. So too is the application of pedagogical reflexivity to efforts to penetrate the logics and demarcation tendencies of the fields of action and social and organizational frameworks such as values and norms. Although progressive professionalization and academization go hand in hand with in-depth debates about the importance of pedagogical reflexivity, questions on how to develop reflexivity in the field remain mostly unanswered. This article is based on a literature search and document analysis that critically questions the disciplinary contexts of pedagogical reflexivity. It shows the extent to which reflection is to be understood as knowledge work, and how reflexivity and professionalization interact with each other.