Embracing Transformation: Ethical Practices in Pedagogical Documentation

Keywords: pedagogical documentation, early childhood education, transformative experience, ethical implications, relational engagements

Abstract

This article explores pedagogical documentation as a situated and speculative practice in early childhood education. Drawing on philosophical concepts including Heidegger’s Dasein, Deleuze and Guattari’s becoming-minoritarian, and the idea of decentering the child, the paper examines how documentation shapes educators’ pedagogical thinking and relational ethics. Rather than focusing on how documentation shifts public views of early education, the article centers transformation as a lived, ethical, and pedagogical process. Through the Fishpond curriculum project, we attune to moments of pedagogical intra-action where documentation participates in the material-discursive reconfiguring of relations, generating speculative possibilities for thinking-with children, educators, and a pedagogist. The article positions documentation as a generative site of struggle that unsettles normative representational logics and sustains pedagogical matterings as ongoing processes of becoming.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

References

Albin-Clark, J. (2021). What is documentation doing? Early childhood education teachers shifting from and between the meanings and actions of documentation practices. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 22(2), 140–155. https://doi.org/10.1177/1463949120917157

Dahlberg, G., & Moss, P. (2005). Ethics and politics in early childhood education. Routledge Falmer.

Dahlberg, G., Moss, P., & Pence, A. (2013). Beyond quality in early childhood education and care: Languages of evaluation. Routledge.

Davies, B. (2014). Listening to children: Being and becoming. Routledge.

Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia (B. Massumi, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press.

Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time: A translation of Sein und Zeit (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). Blackwell. (Original work published 1927)

Giamminuti, S. (2013). Dancing with Reggio Emilia: Metaphors for quality. Pademelon Press.

Jardine, D. W. (2008). On the while of things. Journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies, 8(1), 1–14. https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/jaaacs/article/view/187670

Journal of Childhood Studies. (2023, August 29). Extended – Call for papers – Documentation special issue. https://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/jcs/announcement/view/433

Kim, B. S. (2021). On inaugurating and sustaining the work of a post-secondary institution pedagogist: Collectivity, in-betweens, and having a why [Interview]. Pedagogist Network of Ontario. https://pedagogistnetworkontario.com/tag/processes/

Land, N., Vintimilla, C. D., Pacini-Ketchabaw, V., & Angus, L. (2020). Propositions toward educating pedagogists: Decentering the child. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 21(4), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/1463949120953522

Lenz Taguchi, H. (2010). Going beyond the theory/practice divide in early childhood education: Introducing an intra-activity pedagogy. Routledge.

Nxumalo, F., Vintimilla, C. D., & Nelson, N. (2018). Pedagogical gatherings in early childhood education: Mapping interferences in emergent curriculum. Curriculum Inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1080/03626784.2018.1522930

Olsson, L. M. (2009). Movement and experimentation in young children’s learning: Deleuze and Guattari in early childhood education. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203881231

Rinaldi, C. (2001). Documentation and assessment: What is the relationship? In C. Rinaldi (Author), Making learning visible: Children as individual and group learners (pp. 78–87). Reggio Children & Project Zero.

Rinaldi, C. (2006). Documentation and research. In C. Rinaldi (Author), In dialogue with Reggio Emilia: Listening, researching, and learning (pp. 97–101). Routledge.

Ruitenberg, C. (2015). Toward a curatorial turn in education. In T. E. Lewis & M. J. Laverty (Eds.), Art’s teachings, teaching’s art: Philosophical, critical, and educational musings (pp. 229–242). Springer.

Todd, S. (2020). Creating aesthetic encounters of the world, or teaching in the presence of climate sorrow. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 54(4), 657–670. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.12455

Todd, S. (2023). The touch of the present: Educational encounters, aesthetics, and the politics of the senses. SUNY Press.

Vintimilla, C. D., & Pacini-Ketchabaw, V. (2020). Weaving pedagogy in early childhood education: On openings and their foreclosure. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 28(5), 628–641. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2020.1817235

Vintimilla, C. D., & Pacini Ketchabaw, V. (2021, March). On becoming a pedagogist: Brief thoughts on pedagogical documentation. Pedagogist Network of Ontario Magazine, 2(1). https://pedagogistnetworkontario.com/on-becoming-a-pedagogist-brief-thoughts-on-pedagogical-documentation/

Published
2025-11-25
How to Cite
Kim, B. S. (2025). Embracing Transformation: Ethical Practices in Pedagogical Documentation. Journal of Childhood Studies, 30-45. https://doi.org/10.18357/jcs202521979
Section
Articles from Research