Animals in Early Childhood Education

This book is a research-based text about animals in early childhood education for researchers, academics and postgraduate students. It includes philosophical, historical and socio-political ideas about animals in early childhood education. Written from a pragmatic perspective, the author outlines the core themes including; animal-assisted education, pedagogies of teaching and learning about animals and the ethics associated with animals in early education settings. It is about the multiple ways of seeing animals as a childhood theme and how values for animal-related learning can shape experience and early education practices. The barriers to animal-related educational activity are also detailed as well as the potential for opportunities to enrich children's lives and provide particular life chances for children. The author acknowledges contemporary thinking about assistance animals in early education settings and other ways that animals in early childhood education are possible as an educational and therapeutic experience. This book notes concerns about child protection and animal welfare but it also offers suggestions about how to reconcile the child and animal facing tensions to facilitate the provision of a humane and sustainable education for young children. An important future-facing text with international relevance, this book intends to stimulate discourse about the nature of progressive early education through the application of theory and research findings from early childhood education and from the field of anthrozoology within a comprehensive interdisciplinary text.

Diahann Gallard is a Senior Lecturer/Programme Leader (Education Studies and Early Years) at Liverpool John Moores University. Diahann is also a Chartered Psychologist and the founder and Chair of the Early Childhood Educational Anthrozoology research group.