Glykeria Fragkiadaki

• PhD
• Professor (Assistant) at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

The study reported in this paper aims to structure a cultural-historical understanding on how early childhood children experience science and how they develop scientific thinking as they interact with the social, cultural and material world. Moving beyond the cognitive dimensions of learning by interrelating different aspects of the process of chil...

Seeking, at a theoretical and methodological level, the resolution key of the crisis in psychology during the first decades of 20th century, Vygotsky (1997) highlights the importance of a dialectical approach at the field of human consciousness, cognition and behaviour consideration. In recent years, research interest has been expanded and displace...

Early childhood science education constitutes in the last decades part of the educational reality in kindergarten. However, a number of studies shows that a significant proportion of early childhood educators face difficulties in teaching Natural Sciences. Can cultural- historical theory support early childhood educators to face science education a...

Children construct representations of concepts and physical phenomena and these representations are critical to education. The natural phenomenon of clouds is perceivable and also observable by young children in everyday life. Moreover, it is a subject approached by the early childhood science education curriculums. However, in several studies it i...

This research paper seeks to determine pre-schoolers' representations about the general characteristics of the natural phenomenon of clouds, their reasoning about the consisting elements and the formation procedures of clouds and finally, their ideas about the existence of clouds through time. The sample consisted of 22 children (12 boys and 10 gir...

For decades, two critical challenges have plagued school science in the years it is compulsory for students in many educational contexts across the globe: how best to identify what science is meaningful for all students to learn during their formal school science education, and how to keep these students engaged in the learning of this science. Div...

A growing body of empirical studies in the field of early childhood science education suggests play as a dynamic means to engage young children with the natural world and create the conditions for children’s learning and development in science. Although our understanding of play in science as an activity deepens, we still do not know much about the...

Research examining conceptual development in pre-school age children has relied predominantly on children’s verbal responses and interactions. During infancy, however, immature verbal language skills limit the use of such commonly used methods. Studying infants and toddlers during the pandemic has added new challenges to this unique and highly dema...

This section introduction will study the nexus of crisis, resilience, and digital agility, drawing on the knowledge from the section paper. The concepts of resilience and agility are both social and personal. We lean on Dafermos (Rethinking cultural-historical theory: a dialectical perspective to Vygotsky. Springer, Singapore, 2018), who, with refe...

An educational experiment as a method was originally theorised as the study of a theoretical problem in practice in a context of a collaboration between researchers and teachers. But when teachers and researchers are not able to be physically together because of government guidelines restricting access, suspending research in schools and centres, o...

This chapter concludes our book—a book dedicated to the theorisation of an educational experiment but does so in relation to digital methods. The methods presented across the chapters on this book foreground the many ways an educational experiment can be undertaken. The methods are all in response to the societal and global conditions of a global p...

This book brings forward concepts to support a cultural-historical digital methodology. Specifically, this chapter draws on the dialectics of crisis to articulate a series of research innovations that are presented throughout the book. The chapter outlines the theorising of the methods, and discusses the concepts of e-motion, cultural-historical lo...

This chapter introduces Part IV, which presents the understanding of a crisis that is relevant to the chapters in this section. As the chapters report on the dialectics of searching and re-searching for new methods of continuation of academic practices (lecturing and research), the understanding of a crisis embraces a continuous vibrating and pivot...

In recent times of crisis, contradictions, and drama researchers stood in front of a labyrinth of multiple methodological choices and imponderable research paths and directions. In many cases, this new reality created the opportunity for the researchers to think in novel and innovative ways by involving in a critical, dialectical, and open-ended “d...

There are methodological challenges of studying children’s development in-motion, these challenges were further accentuated in the times of COVID-19 pandemic. The challenge demanded novel thinking from researchers in responding to the crisis and also preparing for new realities post-pandemic. This section has chapters that extends this discourse an...

In the current paper, an attempt is made to synthesize and classify the research findings related to water state changes and the water cycle in the thinking of 3-8-year-old children. This type of findings often emerges through research carried out in contexts with different scientific orientations, such as Educational Sciences, Psychology, and Scie...

This open access book addresses methodological issues related to researching young children’s learning and development, teacher education, and professional development. It pays special attention to research conducted in digital contexts in response to the new societal demands of a global pandemic and crisis. It illustrates and discusses new methods...

Several early years curriculums worldwide highlight the need for promoting learning and development through play. However, we do not know much about how teaching science through play looks like in practice, and how learning in science becomes evident in play-based settings. This study seeks to explore how scientific play can create conditions for p...

In the current study, an attempt is made to bring together and synthesize research data on the way early childhood children approach thermal phenomena and concepts. In this pool of data, the mental representations of young children, the barriers to the conceptualization of these phenomena and the effectiveness of specialized teaching interventions...

The chapter proposes a cultural-historical model of assessing children’s learning and development that demands assessment practices to move from symptomatic assessments of learning to diagnostic assessment of children’s maturing and emerging higher mental functions (e.g. logical thinking, focused attention, mediated memory and use of drawing marks...

Knowing how children become oriented to imaginary play can help educators in centres better support development. But how this begins in the first years of life is not well understood. How toddlers transform through their imagination concrete objects (such as play accessories, figurines, and books) to become props in play (placeholders and pivots) f...

As societal needs change and STEM solutions are offered, an increasing concern for the participation of girls in STEM has emerged. Research has consistently shown the unintended preferential treatment of boys by teachers during STEM teaching and, although well recognised, has seen limited change over the past decades. Gendered interactions, includi...

This article attempts to highlight inscriptions, i.e., photographs, drawings, diagrams, or graphs as autonomous carriers of meaning that can illuminate the different dimensions of a scientific concept. In addition, the article examines the inherent potential of diverse types of inscriptions to be combined with each other creating conceptual sequenc...

A substantial number of empirical studies in the field of Early Childhood Science Education have explored science concept formation in early childhood educational settings. Most of these studies focus on the process of science concept formation during a teaching intervention or a school year period. However, less is known about how children form sc...

As digital technologies have become more developed, new ways of researching have emerged and greater insights into the cultural nature of science established. Yet methodologies have not kept pace with the new methods that have become available. This is not a new problem. Vygotsky wrote that the core issue for researchers was to show the relations b...

Play acts as the source of children’s development in the preschool period. Yet, the global pandemic has changed children’s play conditions in ways that are not yet fully understood. With movement restrictions, families have struggled to find ways of bringing children together for play. We studied how family day care (FDC) educators across a remote...

While evolving societal needs have created a demand for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) outcomes in early childhood, research indicates a deficit view on early childhood teachers’ ability to teach STEM. Existing teaching models are primarily developed from school-based research, conflicting with the early childhood philosoph...

Decades of research into early childhood teacher confidence and competence in science abound. Mostly what is reported is that teachers do not have the background discipline knowledge of science concepts and thereby lack confidence to teach in this area. The net effect is a worryingly limited amount of science being taught in the early childhood per...

On entering formal education, infants face the demand of participating in collective educational rou¬tines and learning experiences. However, in this age period, the sense of collectiveness is still in an embry¬onic form. This study explored how infants enter into and experience the need for collectiveness and how teachers create the conditions for...

Teachers’ pedagogical practices have been consistently highlighted either as a support, or as a barrier, to girls’ science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) engagement. Research suggests that teachers can display forms of gender bias during STEM experiences, such as unintentionally favouring boys in STEM participation. Investigation...

The purpose of the research was to investigate how early childhood teachers create new practices as a result of participation in a 10-week professional development program of an evidence-based model called Conceptual PlayWorld. When seen through the lens of cultural-historical theory, the study identified a set of characteristics for early childhoo...

Research in young children’s ideas, representations, and pre-conceptions about the natural and technical world has a long history. Most of the studies in the field have used individual, semi-structured interviews as a methodological technique to generate and collect empirical data. However, less is known about how tracing procedures can come in lin...

The discussion on the intellectual-cognitive aspect of a child's learning and development in science has a long history. However, less is known about the interrelation between the intellectual, affective, and enactive aspect of young children's learning and development in science, how these aspects intertwine in praxis, and how can be empirically d...

A cultural-historical conception of children's development foregrounds imagination as the key psychological function. Yet, few empirical studies have explored the genesis and motivating conditions for the development of imagination. This paper explores the development of imagination as an inter-psychological activity in infants’ group settings and...

Over the past three decades, our understanding of science learning in early childhood has improved exponentially and today we have a strong empirically based understanding of science experiences for children aged three to six years. However, our understanding of science learning as it occurs for children from birth to three years, is limited. We do...

Young children's learning and development in Science is a complex process. Although a wide range of epistemological, theoretical and methodological frameworks have informed research in Early Childhood Science Education, capturing this complexity remains a challenge. New ways of conceptualizing and researching young children's engagement with Scienc...

The COVID-19 pandemic has led us to an unanticipated and challenging world. In educational settings, one of the ways to respond to this crisis has been the online delivery of content. One of the valid critiques of these online delivery models is the passive role of the participants. The challenge is we still know very little about how technology co...

« Explorer le monde du vivant, des objets et de la matière » : comment mettre en œuvre ce domaine d’apprentissage avec des élèves de maternelle ? Les auteurs proposent ici différentes manières de penser cette première éducation scientifique et technologique, en explorant des cadres théoriques et méthodologiques variés. Ils rendent ainsi compte des...

Η έρευνα η οποία παρουσιάζεται εντάσσεται στο ευρύτερο πεδίο της πολιτισμικής-ιστορικής διερεύνησης και κατανόησης των διαδικασιών μέσα από τις οποίες τα παιδιά προσχολικής ηλικίας αποκτούν την εμπειρία του φυσικού κόσμου και αναπτύσσουν την επιστημονική τους σκέψη για έννοιες και φαινόμενα των Φυσικών Επιστημών. Βασιζόμενη στη θεωρητική έννοια της...

The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the programmatic research of the Conceptual PlayLab in Australia. Funded by the Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship Scheme, the programmatic research seeks to examine under what conditions does children's imaginative play promote the visualisation and imagination of abstract Science...

Digital technologies have created possibilities in research unavailable when Vygotsky first introduced his cultural-historical approach for studying children’s development. More needs to be known about the relations between methodology and method when using digital tools in the early developmental period (1-5 years). In this paper we introduce the...

Many societies are increasingly worried about a lack of interest and expertise in STEM in our communities. At the same time, families and educators are wanting guidance on how to engage their children in STEM. Yet little research is available about this young age group. This review examines the evidence and the practices for supporting STEM thinkin...

Young children experience a wide range of conflicts during everyday educational reality. Instead of being intellectual barriers, conflicting situations have a critical role in young children's learning and development in Science. The present study seeks to explore the kind of conflicts that occur during collective science experiences in early child...

Research into early childhood children’s understandings in science has a long history. However, few studies have drawn upon cultural-historical theory to frame their research. Mostly, what is known has come from studies which have examined individual understandings of science concepts, without reference to culture, context or the collective nature...

This cultural-historical study examines the ability of young children to shape their own collective science experiences and create possibilities and opportunities for their scientific development. Drawing upon Vygotsky's conception of how the child's social situation of development is created, the study focus on everyday contradictory situations in...

The poster presents an educational program focused on science concepts formation in play-based settings.

Η εργασία αυτή συνιστά μια προσπάθεια αξιοποίησης μεθοδολογικών στοιχείων και γνωστικών εργαλείων από το θεωρητικό πλαίσιο της κοινωνικοπολιτισμικής- ιστορικής προσέγγισης κατά τη μελέτη των διαδικασιών συγκρότησης νοητικών παραστάσεων από παιδιά νηπιαγωγείου για το φυσικό φαινόμενο της πήξης. Με γενικό μεθοδολογικό πλαίσιο τη «μέθοδο τριπλής εστία...

The conceptualization of psyche development as a linear process oriented towards a psychological equilibrium has been considered a fundamental concept in the field of classic psychological theories and methodologies. However, the legacy of Vygotsky’s non-classic psychology foregrounds “an abstract dialectical idea of a contradiction as a moving for...

This study aims at exploring the potential of integrating drawings in order to help children process the phenomenon of shadow formation through successive drawings during a set of activities. A qualitative research approach was adopted using three sets of data (99 drawings in total) collected over a period of 6 months in two kindergartens, in Franc...

In this study, we attempt to exhibit the importance of the socio-cultural environment for the conceptualization of the dissolution of solids into liquids by 5 to 6 years old children. Through the organization and encouragement of conceptual play processes within every day educational reality in kindergarten, we examine whether children are able to...

Τhis paper aims at exploring children’s ideas concerning shadow formation as they are expressed through their drawings. A qualitative research approach was adopted using two sets of data (89 drawings in total) collected over a period of 6 months in two kindergartens, one in France and a second in Greece. The drawings in each group were realised usi...

Children form representations of concepts, physical phenomena and technical objects which are critical to teaching and learning. In addition, they are familiar with the everyday usefulness of many particular objects, although it is not certain that they associate them with the scientific aspects of their function. In this research, preschoolers’ re...

Children form representations of concepts, physical phenomena and technical objects which are critical to teaching and learning. In addition, they are familiar with the everyday usefulness of many particular objects, although it is not certain that they associate them with the scientific aspects of their function. In this research, preschoolers’ re...

In this research paper, the dynamic of preschoolers’ interactions during the approach of basic science concepts in kindergarten is designated, based on the “socio-cultural, historical approach”. The procedures through which young children communicate and cooperate in order to structure their explanatory schemes and the contextual factors that media...