Will Parnell

Prof. Dr. Will Parnell

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Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

27Years (2000-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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3 April 2017 in Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
JIJeanne Marie Iorio
Jeanne Marie Iorio
CHCatherine Hamm
Catherine Hamm
Will ParnellWill Parnell
Will Parnell
EQElizabeth Quintero
Elizabeth Quintero
Neoliberalism, capitalist ideas, and the disastrous human-induced state of the environment are evidence of the lack of connection between humans and the earth, calling for a rethinking of the relationships between humans and the planet. As early childhood educators, we wonder about our role in rethinking these relationships and in particular, the relationship between children and planet. In this article, we articulate the actions and positioning of teachers in three different research studies and various contexts (Victoria, AUS; Oregon, USA; California, USA) utilizing Latour’s (2004) ‘matters of concern’ as a framework to rethink engagement and relationality. Each project considers how place can be a provocation that makes visible the entanglement of children, families, teachers, and the more-than-human as a way to rethink pedagogy. The limitations, tensions, and possibilities that occur within and across these entanglements are explored, highlighting how the enacted practices could disrupt dominant early childhood discourses and practices.

6 March 2023 in Pedagogy, Culture & Society
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
CHCatherine Hamm
Catherine Hamm
JIJeanne Marie Iorio
Jeanne Marie Iorio
JCJayson Cooper
Jayson Cooper
KSKylie Smith
Kylie Smith
PCPeter Crowcroft
Peter Crowcroft
NYNicola Yelland
Nicola Yelland
In response to dominant discourses of quality and an over-reliance on humancentric practice, the Learning with Place framework emerges as an innovative way to rethink practices, structures, and policies within education and beyond. ‘Learning with Place’ views the local Place as agentic, recognising Place as inclusive of local First Nations knowledges and stories, histories and the more-than-human (for example, landforms, waterways, animals, insects, flora, and fauna). Through ‘Learning with Place’, deep relationships with the local Place are generated and these relationships become the catalyst for actions and decision-making regarding caring for/with local Place. This article offers an example of ‘Learning with Place’ in action through an early childhood teacher education program and shares ways in which the framework can be utilised in multiple contexts and disciplines.

8 March 2011 in Journal of Early Childhood Research
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
PDF file
Will ParnellWill Parnell
Will Parnell
Inspired by the educational approach in the municipal pre-primary schools and infant-toddler centers of Reggio Emilia, Italy, two studio teachers and a researcher participant in Portland, Oregon capture classroom work, make investigations and interpretations in the studio as a laboratory space of learning, help children represent thinking, and collaboratively share their ideas with colleagues, parents, and their local community. Through their work of documenting young children’s learning, a researcher-participant aims to liberate the studio teachers’ narrative-episodes with a fundamental question: what meaning can be found in the studio experiences of documenting young children’s learning? The research results are phenomenological in nature and cascade into three narrative-episodes and discussions. Conclusions and implications for future research follow. In the end, the team finds the importance in their studio practice as a way to create meaning in everyday experiences.

10 August 2011 in Journal of Early Childhood Research
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
PDF file
Will ParnellWill Parnell
Will Parnell
A teacher educator phenomenologically researches with two studio teachers, creating a dynamic of three reflective practitioners making meaning of their time in the studios. They are reflective practitioners as they claim to practice learning and teaching in reflection, action and reflective action. In their team of three, they explore the question: How can reflective practices help us make meaning of our experiences in the early childhood studio? This team ventures to find meaning in their reflective studio encounters as they work together to reflect back on their experiences in a school’s studios. Working with small groups of children in two studios, these teacher researchers co-learn with children, in one studio about making family faces and the other about creating birds and nests. They bring together their trails and traces of learning – their documentation – to collaborate on reflecting back their experiences and make meaning of them to move forward in their work. In reflecting, problems arise with collaboration which leads to solutions of risking to listen, moving beyond comfort zones and more reflection.

15 February 2024 in Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
AMAngela Molloy Murphy
Angela Molloy Murphy
Will ParnellWill Parnell
Will Parnell
LCLarisa Callaway-Cole
Larisa Callaway-Cole
EQElizabeth Quintero
Elizabeth Quintero
We believe that our most powerful approach to defy the erasure of people, knowledges, and open ways of living and being is generative storying together with children and families, educators, and the more-than-human. Storying takes many forms and is about more than overcoming coloniality or the earthly survival of humans. It is about taking a stance with a “citizenship of strangers” to compose more equitable, care-filled, and relational ways of living, especially with young children and their families. Thinking with storying as a liberatory and transformative process, we believe the perspectives of our human and more-than-human co-collaborators—the people, places, and materialities that collectively co-create these stories—are urgently required to offer satellites of hope amid the darkness and to practice living in radical relationality and a project of love.

18 October 2016 in The New Educator
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
Will ParnellWill Parnell
Will Parnell
CDChristine Downs
Christine Downs
JCJulianne Cullen
Julianne Cullen
Ecologically minded leaders and early childhood teacher educators offer a culturally significant shiny fish project in their community as a way to launch an environmental-material reuse project. Questioning if environmental collapse is imminent, their project investigation of developing a locally relevant Remida Reggio-inspired center serves as hope for reconceptualizing early childhood practices, offering innovations, and fostering intelligent moderation of earthly resources. Finding widening circles of influence and engaging participants are key to nurturing hope, and these educators draw implications to manifest a large and impactful vision and call to action.