From proof-of-concept to scale in the study of aesthetic literacy-events for cognitive language-development and equal and inclusive early childhood education and care: Designing a research program

The project is motivated by an increase in national and international interest in language and cognition in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), at the same time as questions of equality and inclusion in ECEC, in education in general and globally, are more urgent to address than ever before.

The purpose of the proposed project is to move from proof-of-concept studies in these two fields of inquiry and to join them in the design of an ethical and scientifical sound and up-scaled research programme.

The aims are to develop theory, methodology, ethics and a detailed design for such a programme that studies how aesthetic literacy events in a Playworld/Interactive performance affect the relation between children’s cognitive development of narrative competencies and their creation of communities at a classroom level.

The project is organized in four consecutive work-packages (WP’s) that each address one of the aims: Month 1-12 WP1 Theory; Month 13-24 WP2 Method; Month 25-30 WP 3 Ethics; and Month 31-42 WP4 Design.

With support from the sociology and philosophy of science as well as ground-breaking methodological work with scaling up proof-of-concept studies in the economic sciences, the project develops and field-tests a philosophical theory, a methodology that joins quantitative and qualitative methods, including pedagogical-didactical determinants, an ethics and a design for a scaled-up research programme that investigates the two fields of inquiry and their interrelation.