Teaching grandmothers to suck eggs? : discourses on gender and inclusion in non maintained early years settings.

This small scale qualitative case study explores the experience of being a special
educational needs coordinator (Senco) in a non maintained early years setting * . It is
based on interviews with fifteen women pre school workers and on observations made
both in their places of work and throughout the course of a training programme they
attended with the author. Located within a social constructivist paradigm, grounded
theory techniques are employed to explore the Sencos' understanding of their role and
their approach to working with children with special needs.
The results of the study indicate that the gendered nature of childcare work, combined
with limited access to the dominant discourse of the 'Code ofPractice'(DfES, 2001) has
led to a different, gendered approach to working with children with special educational
needs, which has much in common with inclusive practice.
The study concludes that this inclusive practice has evolved over time due to the
gendered nature of childcare work and the previous lack of external support. The
transition from being classified as care settings to being education settings is identified
as a threat to this practice though, due to a wider misunderstanding of the non
maintained sector and to the Sencos' lack of confidence in the value of their own
practice.
Following in the tradition of Hollway (1989) and Taylor (1996) the study is presented
as a dynamic piece of work in which the methodology is not constrained to a single
chapter, but evolves alongside of the project. As such questions of methodology appear
throughout the study and the reader is invited to engage not only with the final product
but also in the research process itself.