Kubra Alhawamdeh

Profile

I have completed my undergraduate education as early childhood teacher at Dumlupınar University in Turkey. I took courses related to educational sciences, philosophy, and psychology. In addition to these educational courses, I took lectures about children’s development, play development, children’s mental health, and literature in early childhood. I also learned mathematics, music, science, visual arts, and drama education in early childhood. I had lectures about media and child, parental education, and special education. After that I enrolled a fully funded scholarship program by Turkish Ministry of Education to complete my master and doctorate in the UK.

During my master education at the University of Sheffield, I gained the skills to develop educational research within lectures about research disciplines and methods of educational research. I learned approaches to research and analysis methods for both qualitative and quantitative types of research. I took courses related to the curriculum, assessment, and learning in early childhood. With those main courses, I learned the language, identity, and play development of children; disabilities and inclusion; gender in education; literacies and multi modalities; school readiness, and transition.

Besides these lectures, I attended the MakEY (Makerspaces in the early years: Enhancing digital literacy and creativity) and bilingual education seminars during my master education. In addition to these, I got lectures about Funds of knowledge approach in the early years. This approach mainly aims to bring socio-cultural diversity in education by learning children’s informal, everyday knowledge, skills and interests that are learned from family and community in diverse socio-cultural societies. I did my research about funds of knowledge from teachers’ perspectives for my master thesis.

I am currently a PhD student at the University of Leeds, in the School of Education. My main area of research is the Funds of Knowledge approach in early childhood education. I will be adopting qualitative research methods to investigate teachers’ experiences to employ children’s funds of knowledge in early childhood education in the Yorkshire region.

Research interests

My research interests include cultural diversity in early childhood education, early years teachers’ experiences in practice and funds of knowledge approach as a framework to curriculum and decision-making that are responsive to children’s diverse experiences, interests and everyday knowledge.

Qualifications

• MA in Early Childhood Education - University of Sheffield
• BA in Early Childhood Education - Dumlupınar University