Children’s Participation in Work Integrated Learning in Early Childhood Education

Work integrated learning (WIL) forms a pivotal component contributing to pre-service teacher development. Whilst research highlights the advantages and challenges pre-service teachers experience during work integrated learning, there is a dearth of research that focuses on how children participate in WIL which adopts an adult perspective. In this theoretical chapter, we provide an overview of why children’s participation as to how they experienced the lesson is required through a child centered perspective for work integrated learning. We conclude by offering potentialities for policy makers, public and private higher education institutions to reimagine and reconceptualize the role of young children and older children’s participation in work integrated learning. Considerations are also presented for empirical studies to be carried out to explore the impact of children’s participation in the form of feedback to how children experienced the lesson for both pre-service and in-service teachers teaching.