Career Summary
Biography
Dr Karen Watson is a Lecturer in Early Childhood Education. With over 30 years of teaching experience in a wide variety of contexts, including early childhood classrooms and early intervention services, she has worked at the University of Newcastle since 2008. First, as a sessional academic, until completing her doctorate in 2015. Teaching across a broad range of subject area her main area of interest is inclusive education. Her doctoral research examined how young children actively negotiate difference in their everyday encounters with each other.
Qualifications
- Doctor of Philosophy, University of Newcastle
- Bachelor of Education, University of Sydney
- Master of Special Education, University of Newcastle
Keywords
- Early Childhood Education, Inclusive Education
Professional Experience
UON Appointment
Title | Organisation / Department |
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Lecturer | University of Newcastle School of Education Australia |
Lecturer | University of Newcastle School of Education Australia |
Academic appointment
Dates | Title | Organisation / Department |
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6/1/2016 - | Lecturer | School of Education, The University of Newcastle Australia |
Publications
For publications that are currently unpublished or in-press, details are shown in italics.
Book (1 outputs)
Year | Citation | Altmetrics | Link |
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2017 | Watson K, Inside the 'Inclusive' Early Childhood Classroom: The Power of the 'Normal', Peter Lang, New York, 211 (2017) [A1] |
Chapter (3 outputs)
Year | Citation | Altmetrics | Link | ||
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2018 |
Watson K, 'Interrogating the normal in the 'inclusive' early childhood classroom: silence, taboo and the elephant in the room ', The Palgrave Handbook of Disabled Children's Childhood Studies., Palgrave Macmillan, London 141-157 (2018) [B1]
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2018 | Watson K, 'Researching among children: Exploring discourses and power in the 'inclusive' early childhood classroom', Seen and Heard Exploring Participation, Engagement and Voice for Children with Disabilities, Peter Lang, New York (2018) | ||||
2016 |
Watson K, ''Silences' in the 'Inclusive' Early Childhood Classroom: Sustaining a 'Taboo'', Interrupting The Psy-Disciplines in Education, Palgrave Macmillan, London 13-31 (2016) [B1]
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Journal article (8 outputs)
Year | Citation | Altmetrics | Link | |||||
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2020 |
Watson K, ' I am big; he is little : interrogating the effects of developmental discourses among children in inclusive early childhood classrooms', International Journal of Early Years Education, (2020) © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Over past decades in early childhood education, there has been an emerging critique of developmental discourses... [more] © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Over past decades in early childhood education, there has been an emerging critique of developmental discourses. Despite this, the universality of child development theory persists and along with it, expectations of a linear progression via prescribed stages and ages. Developmentalism produces a normal in the classroom that sanctions comparisons, positioning any difference to the normal as problematic. In this paper, using observation and conversation data from a larger poststructural ethnographic study of three inclusive early childhood classrooms in Australia, the effects of developmental discourses on the classroom and on inclusive practice are examined. Providing an alternative view of inclusion, the paper focuses on the operations of the normal, exposing the exclusionary effects of developmental discourses on children, and among children. As children negotiate difference in the classroom, they draw on sanctioned developmental understandings in coming to know themselves and others. Interrupting the power and authority of these discourses and the way they produce certain ways of being and becoming could provide some promise for inclusive practices.
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2020 |
Watson K, 'Unspeakable: the discursive production of a tragic subject among children in the early childhood classroom', International Journal of Inclusive Education, 24 1461-1472 (2020) © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. For the children in the inclusive early childhood classroom, there are acceptable, but only limited ways to spe... [more] © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. For the children in the inclusive early childhood classroom, there are acceptable, but only limited ways to speak about disability, and sometimes no way to speak. Discourses of tragedy and suffering have a pervasive, and historically resilient, association with disability in education. A subject of tragedy is discursively created in the classroom via discourses of development and special education, as one who is in need of sympathy, remediation and cure. A normal is re/produced in the classroom and as young children take up the sanctioned discourses that individualise and medicalise subjects, exclusionary practices are observed that reinforce a privileged normal and a subjugated Other. Troubling embedded discourses that privilege the normal, and pathologise the Other, exposes uncomfortable remnants from the past. Interrupting dominant discourses and rethinking the way that they subject us all provides some promise for re-imagining inclusive education.
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2019 |
Watson K, ' We are all friends : Disrupting friendship play discourses in inclusive early childhood education', Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 19 1-12 (2019)
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2016 | Watson K, 'Talking tolerance inside the inclusive early childhood classroom.', Bank Street College Occasional Papers Series, 36 (2016) [C1] | |||||||
2015 |
Watson K, Millei Z, Petersen EB, ''Special' non-human actors in the 'inclusive' early childhood classroom: The wrist band, the lock and the scooter board', Global Studies of Childhood, 5 266-278 (2015) [C1]
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2009 | Millei Z, Watson KT, 'Children communicating social and emotional wellbeing', Education Connect, 6-9 (2009) [C2] | |||||||
2009 | Millei Z, Watson KT, 'Hearing children's voices: Respecting their views', Foundations: Developing Social & Emotional Wellbeing in Early Childhood, 5-7 (2009) [C3] | |||||||
Watson K, Millei Z, Bendix Petersen E, 'Silence and its mechanisms as the discursive production of the normal in the early childhood classroom', Journal of Childhood, Education & Society, 1 103-115 [C1]
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Show 5 more journal articles |
Review (1 outputs)
Year | Citation | Altmetrics | Link |
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2017 | Watson K, 'Book Review: Young and free: (Post) colonial ontologies of childhood, memory and history in Australia (2017) |
Other (2 outputs)
Year | Citation | Altmetrics | Link |
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2018 | Watson K, Roy D, 'The Arts in the K-2 classroom: Belonging, Being and Becoming', (2018) [O1] | ||
2018 | Watson K, Roy D, 'The Arts in early childhood learning', (2018) [O1] |
Grants and Funding
Summary
Number of grants | 1 |
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Total funding | $25,000 |
Click on a grant title below to expand the full details for that specific grant.
20201 grants / $25,000
Children's Voices: Creating inclusive early childhood spaces for children$25,000
Funding body: Little School
Funding body | Little School |
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Project Team | Associate Professor Linda Newman, Doctor Karen Watson, Doctor Karen Watson |
Scheme | Research Grant |
Role | Investigator |
Funding Start | 2020 |
Funding Finish | 2020 |
GNo | G2000044 |
Type Of Funding | C3111 - Aust For profit |
Category | 3111 |
UON | Y |
Research Supervision
Number of supervisions
Current Supervision
Commenced | Level of Study | Research Title | Program | Supervisor Type |
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2020 | PhD | Learning out the Gate: An Exploration of Educators’ Pedagogical Relationships with Infants and Toddlers during Nature Excursions in Australia and Italy | PhD (Education), College of Human and Social Futures, The University of Newcastle | Co-Supervisor |
2020 | PhD | The Trends in Private Early Childhood Education Providers in Vietnam | PhD (Education), College of Human and Social Futures, The University of Newcastle | Co-Supervisor |
2019 | PhD | Aesthetic Pedagogy - A Case Study of Early Childhood Educators’ Pedagogical Affordances of Aesthetic Engagement | PhD (Education), College of Human and Social Futures, The University of Newcastle | Co-Supervisor |
2018 | PhD | Practicum Experiences of Pre-Service Early Childhood Teachers and their Supervisors in Saudi Arabia | PhD (Education), College of Human and Social Futures, The University of Newcastle | Co-Supervisor |
2017 | PhD | Exploring Environmental Sustainability and Visual Art Education Through Teacher Narratives in Bahrain’s Kindergartens | PhD (Education), College of Human and Social Futures, The University of Newcastle | Co-Supervisor |
Dr Karen Watson
Position
Lecturer
Early childhood/primary
School of Education
College of Human and Social Futures
Contact Details
karen.watson@newcastle.edu.au | |
Phone | 02 40553388 |
Office
Room | Room CT104 |
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Building | Hunter Building |
Location | Callaghan University Drive Callaghan, NSW 2308 Australia |