Strengthening the home-school partnership is a strategy to raise achievement levels and to engage 'hard-to-reach' parents with education in the UK, however this political ideal has been critiqued as exclusive and based on a white, middle class model. This article explores how six asylum-seeking mothers manage their children's early years education, with a specific focus on the concept of parent-partnership. Asylum-seekers in the UK are stigmatised in the media and one of the most marginalised groups in society. The mothers participated in a three-hour group interview with questions, ranking cards and discussion interpreted into the home languages. Findings highlight tensions in language learning, a lack of appropriate cultural resources, perceptions of teachers as experts, and differing values as desired attributes for their children. The implications of these findings extend our knowledge of an under-researched group of mothers and young children and, if replicated, may inform future early years practice.RÉSUMÉ: Renforcer le partenariat maison-école est une stratégie pour élever les niveaux de réussite et impliquer, dans l'éducation, les parents difficiles à atteindre, au Royaume-Uni. Cependant cet idéal politique a été jugé excluant et basé sur le modèle bourgeois et blanc. Cet article analyse comment six mères demandeuses d'asile gèrent l'éducation pré-primaire de leurs enfants, en se centrant sur le concept de partenariat avec les parents. Les demandeurs d'asile, au Royaume-Uni, sont stigmatisés dans les médias et constituent l'un des groupes les plus marginalisés de la société britannique. Les mères ont participé à un entretien collectif de trois heures, comprenant des questions, des cartes à classer et une discussion, avec interprétation dans leur langue maternelle. Les résultats soulignent les tensions dans l'apprentissage de la langue, un manque de ressources culturelles appropriées, une perception des enseignants comme experts et des valeurs autres désirées pour leurs enfants. Les implications de ces résultats étendent nos connaissances d'un groupe, peu étudié jusqu'ici, de mères et de jeunes enfants. Des répliques pourraient à l'avenir bénéficier à la pratique éducative dans le pré-primaire.ZUSAMMENFASSUNG: Die Zusammenarbeit zwischen Schulen und Eltern zu stärken ist eine Strategie im Vereinigten Königreich, um zu erreichen, dass sich Eltern, die schwer zu erreichen sind, mehr für die Erziehung ihrer Kinder interessieren. Jedoch hat man dieses politisches Wunschbild als exklusiv und bürgerlich kritisiert. Dieser Artikel untersucht, wie sechs asylsuchende Mütter an der frühkindlichen Bildung ihrer Kinder arbeiten und konzentriert sich ausdrücklich auf die Zusammenarbeit mit Eltern. Asylbewerber werden in den britischen Medien stigmatisiert und gehören zu den am stärksten vernachlässigten Gruppen in der Gesellschaft. Die Mütter nahmen an einem dreistündigen Gruppeninterview teil, wobei die Fragen und Diskussionsbeiträge in ihre Muttersprache übersetzt wurden. Die Forschungsergebnisse zeigen, dass die Müt...

The bio medical expert literature, although contested, associates the use of dummies, soothers or pacifiers, with illness, dental malformation, impaired speech and language, and working‐class mothering. This article suggests this negative perspective has filtered, via experts and the media, into public narratives of ‘good’ mothering. Interviews with 20 disadvantaged mothers demonstrate the complex negotiations undertaken to integrate dummy use into their personal ‘good‐mothering’ narratives. Representing their hitherto ignored voices in the dummy debate allows a consideration of the context of, and influences on, dummy use. The article argues that rather than a symbol of inadequate working‐class mothering, dummy use is a complex, highly negotiated, situated mothering practice.

This paper describes the findings of a qualitative evaluation of an early years' intervention, I Can's Early Talk (ET) programme. ET was designed to improve speech, language and communication outcomes for children aged 0Á5 by focusing on enhancing practitioners' knowledge and skills. The research focused on children aged 3Á4 years and was conducted in 14 Sure Start Children's Centres across England, using a combination of observations and interviews with practitioners, centre managers and local authority staff, along with a questionnaire survey of parents. Findings revealed improvements in practitioners' confidence and practice as a result of participating in the programme. The results also suggest that participating practitioners felt their capacity to understand and reflect on how to support children's speech, language and communication improved, particularly in the children's centres which had been accredited for over six months. ET was also found to offer a balance of support and challenge which consolidated and extended good practice and identified areas for development where practice was less effective. In addition, some of the challenges, which characterised and ultimately enhanced the research process, are described.

School nurses are often called on teach sexual health without being given any formal teacher training or support. This article describes a study of the experiences of 50 school nurses. The author suggests ways in which schools and their nurses could create supportive and complementary teaching partnerships for effective sex education.

In this article, interviews with eight managers and questionnaires from 75 practitioners are analysed to explore their perceptions of the role of pacifi ers (or dummies) within the nursery. Managers and practitioners source their knowledge from the media, family/friends, and short professional speech and language courses; however, their perceptions of pacifi ers derive from mainly contested research that has fi ltered into the public domain. This creates tensions between perceived parental rights to offer a child a pacifi er, current UK guidelines and participants' own, often ambivalent, views. The article engages with Foucauldian concepts to explore how authoritative knowledge fi lters into everyday practice and to deconstruct relations of power within the early years setting. K E Y W O R D S early years settings, Foucault, pacifi ers/dummies journal of early childhood research