How is young children’s intellectual culture of perceiving nature different from adults’?

How is young children’s intellectual culture of perceiving nature different from adults’? What types of linguistic and gender characteristics appear in that phenomenon? What should be considered in pedagogical practice for young children given this understanding? Based on field‐based vignettes collected from multiple sites and situations that are natural to young children’s living and learning environment, the exploratory paper presents two major social cultural characteristics: (1) there is a pattern of linguistic discourse that presents a mismatch between young children’s and adults’ perceptions of the natural environment; and (2) a stereotypical gender‐doing seems to be prevalent in the process of young children’s knowledge construction about their natural environment. Notes * Associate Professor, Department of Teaching, Leadership and Curriculum Studies—ECE, College and Graduate School of Education, Kent State University, 404 White Hall, Kent, OH 44240, USA. Email: ehyun@kent.edu The goal of trying to understand the world of young childhood requires researchers to take various stances toward their informants. There is no doubt that adults tend to understand children from their own adultcentric perspective. Waksler (Citation1986) indicates that adults frequently see young children as unfinished, in process, not anywhere yet and/or routinely wrong, in error and not understanding. In the same way, Silvers (Citation1976) analyzes Piagetian theorizing as missing much of what it means to be a young child by using adult models of thought. Phenomenologists like Denzin (Citation1977) and Waksler state that researchers should examine the world of young children as a rightfully lived reality. The key assertion is that we should explore children’s competencies (what they can do) and not their incapacities (what they cannot do). But this claim does not mean that the traditional approaches were/are wrong. In certain obvious ways, children are immature and are being socialized (Sluckin, Citation1981) (e.g. not clearly realizing what is safe and what is not in attempts to touch poison ivy; in India, the elephant is a sacred animal that requires respect from humans). Thus, young children need adults’ support and guides that are not only developmentally appropriate but also culturally meaningful in the social contexts the children live in. As Fine and Sandstrom (Citation1988) indicate, both positions present ideological pictures of children, and both deserve to be researched more thoroughly. Additional informationNotes on contributorsEunsook Hyun Footnote* * Associate Professor, Department of Teaching, Leadership and Curriculum Studies—ECE, College and Graduate School of Education, Kent State University, 404 White Hall, Kent, OH 44240, USA. Email: ehyun@kent.edu