From Thursday 31st August till Saturday 2nd September 2023, Angela Hodgkins, a senior lecturer from the Department for Children and Families, attended the European Early Childhood Educational Research Association (EECERA) conference. The conference is held annually at a different European city each year, and this year it was in Estoril, Portugal.
The conference theme was ‘Children’s curiosity, agency and participation: challenges for professional action and development’ and there were over 1,100 delegates attending. Angela presented her PhD research on empathy within early childhood practice to an international audience. Presentations were organised into symposia; the other presenters in this symposium were Suvi Puolakka from the University of Helsinki, Finland, and Susanna Isotolo from the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. The three presenters are hoping to collaborate on an academic journal article.
As well as presenting, Angela listened to a range of presentations on all sorts of subjects, including ‘what children really think about sitting straight, golden time and reward charts’, ‘young children’s voices – do we really listen to them?’, ‘Early childhood workforce stress’, ‘practitioner coping strategies during the coronavirus crisis’, professionals’ emotional availability’, ‘teachers’ eye gaze in toddler groups’, and supporting childminders in Quebec!” There were also keynote speeches by well-known writers and pioneers Catherne L’Ecuyer, Jóhanna Einarsdóttir, Luis Ribiero and Freire Laevers.
The conference provided an opportunity for networking with early childhood practitioners from across the world, as well as listening to examples of practice from different countries. The main thing we all learned was how similar our experiences are in working with young children.