Transitions to School - International Research, Policy and Practice

This book provides an important compilation and synthesis of current work in transition to school research. The book focuses strongly on the theoretical underpinnings of research in transition to school. It outlines key theoretical positions and connects those to the implications for policy and practice, thereby challenging readers to re-conceptualize their understandings, expectations and perceptions of transition to school. The exploration of this range of theoretical perspectives and the application of these to a wide range of research and research contexts makes this book an important and innovative contribution to the scholarship of transition to school research. A substantial part of the book is devoted to detailed examples of transition to school practice. These chapters provide innovative examples of evidence-based practice and contribute in turn, to practice-based evidence. The book is also devoted to considering policy issues and implications related to the transition to school. It records a genuine, collaborative effort to bring together a range of perspectives into a Transition to School Position Statement that will inform ongoing research, practice and policy. The collaborative, research, policy and practice based development of this position statement represents a world-first.

About the editors.- About the authors.- Foreword; Wilfried Griebel.- Theorising Transitions: Shifts and Tensions; Sue Dockett, Anne Petriwskyj and Bob Perry.- Building on Bioecological Perspectives.- Reading of Media Accounts of Transition to School in Iceland; Jóhanna Einarsdóttir.- Thinking about Transitions - One Framework or Many? Populating the Theoretical Model over Time; Aline-Wendy Dunlop.- Multiple Influences on Children's Transition to School; Elizabeth Murray.- Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Influences on School Transition; Linda Harrison.- Transition and Adjustment to School; Kay Margetts.- Transitions and Emergent Writers; Noella Mackenzie.- Borderlands, Life Course and Rites of Passage.- Chasms, Bridges and Borderlands: A Transitions Research 'Across the Border' from Early Childhood Education to School in New Zealand; Sally Peters.- Transition to School - A Rite of Passage in Life; Anders Garpelin.- A Sociocultural Approach to Children in the Transition from Home to Kindergarten; Mei Seung Lam.- Experienced and Recalled Transition. Starting School as Part of Life History; Tuija Turunen.- Critical Perspectives.- The Relation of Research on Readiness to Research/Practice of Transitions; Elizabeth Graue and June Reineke.- Social Justice Dimensions of Starting School; Bob Perry.- Transition to School: Normative or Relative?; Sue Dockett.- Critical Theory and Inclusive Transitions to School; Anne Petriwskyj.- Connecting Theory, Research, Policy and Practice.- Starting School: Synthesis and Analysis; Amy MacDonald, Wendy Goff, Kathryn Hopps, Cathy Kaplun and Susanne Rogers.- The Wollongong Transition to School Experience: A Big Step for Children, Families and the Community; Tracey Kirk-Downey and Shabnam Hinton.- Transitions, Inclusion and Information Technology; Bronwyn Glass and Margaret Cotman.- Building Connections around Transition: Partnerships and Resources for Inclusion; MargeArnup.- Research to Policy: Transition to School Position Statement; Sue Dockett and Bob Perry.