Xunrou Shen

I'm currently a PhD student in the department of education at the University of Strathclyde. I grow up in China and received my early training in early childhood education since the high school. After the four-year bachelor's studying on early years theories combined with diverse internship experiences in different early years institutions, I became intensively interested in child-centred approaches. With a strong eager to expand knowledge on different early years pedagogies led me to go on to master study at the University of Edinburgh which majored in Early Childhood Practice and Froebel. Through studying Froebel’s educational approach and attending various Froebel Network Conferences, I was able to hear Froebelians’ practices with children and families which not only helped me to develop my personal understanding of Froebelians’ child-centred and holistic pedagogy but also his strong emphasise on the utmost of family and parents in a young child’s learning which is centred in a Froebelian approach. As such, I completed my master dissertation which strived to explore parent-practitioner partnership. However, the missing of young child's voice in terms of their learning experience with parents' involvement in literature arouse my attention. The unique period of pandemic, especially, has further highlighted the child-parent learning interactions/home or family learning. Thus, my current research interest is to explore young children learning experience with parental engagement during and after Covid-19 crisis. Meanwhile, I aim to examine how the application of Froebelian principles and practices can support parental engagement with young children’s learning during the pandemic and beyond.