More Than Care: Reframing Infant Pedagogy in ECE Contexts within Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

Within Aotearoa New Zealand, Te Whāriki, the national early childhood education (ECE) curriculum, promotes an image of infants as confident, capable learners from birth. This document highlights infant agency and capacity to contribute as active participants in their own learning journeys. Despite this positioning, infant pedagogy remains under-researched and under-represented in national and international scholarship. Infant pedagogy reflects the reciprocal relationship between teaching and learning through kaiako (teacher/s) and pēpi (infants from birth to approximately two-years-old) interactions. Despite this positioning, research often privileges developmental outcomes over pedagogical and relational dimensions. Responding to this tension, this study asks what conditions within Aotearoa New Zealand's ECE sector impact how infant pedagogy is enacted? Undertaking both a critical literature review and autoethnographic narrative reflections, this dissertation examines the everyday complexities of how infant pedagogy is understood and enacted within contemporary ECE settings. Focusing on the Aotearoa New Zealand context enables examination of how the relational aspirations of Te Whāriki are experienced within the realities of contemporary ECE provision. Combining a critical literature review with narrative autoethnographic reflection provides insight not only into dominant theories and expectations surrounding infant pedagogy, but also into how these are negotiated, challenged, and enacted within everyday practice. Together, these approaches illuminate the often-overlooked conditions that shape possibilities for responsive and relational infant pedagogy.

The findings suggest that while relational pedagogy provides a crucial foundation for recognising infants as active participants in learning, its enactment is often constrained by organisational culture, structural conditions, and expectations placed upon kaiako. The study argues that meaningful infant pedagogy depends not only on responsive relationships, but also on the conditions that enable those relationships to flourish, including teacher wellbeing, reflective practice, and pedagogical responsiveness. Rather than proposing an alternative pedagogy, this dissertation calls for a reframing of infant learning that recognises the interconnected influence of relational, organisational, and structural factors. These insights contribute to ongoing conversations about infant pedagogy in Aotearoa New Zealand and offer implications for researchers, practicing kaiako, teacher educators, and educational leaders seeking to strengthen relationally responsive learning environments for pēpi.