Overview
An Educology of Development and Learning: The Early Years (0 Through 5) (2022) represents the most recent application of Christensen's framework, and in some ways its most demanding test: the early childhood period, in which the boundaries between biological maturation, incidental learning, and intentionally guided education are least clear and most practically consequential.
Maturation versus Education
A central distinction in the book is between maturation — the biological and psychical development that occurs in children as a result of the unfolding of their genetic programme and their interaction with an appropriate environment — and education in Christensen's strict sense, which requires intentional guidance toward a prescribed range of knowing. This distinction is not merely terminological; it has profound implications for how we understand the role of adults in the early years.
Much of what is described as "early childhood education" is in fact early childhood care and development support — the provision of conditions that allow maturation to proceed well. This is enormously important, but it is not education in Christensen's sense. True early childhood education — the intentional guidance of young children toward specific forms of knowing — is a more limited and more demanding activity, one that requires careful attention to what forms of knowing are appropriate to the developmental stage of the child and what methods of guidance are consistent with genuine learning rather than mere conditioning.
The Earliest Forms of Knowing-To
The book gives particular attention to the earliest forms of knowing-to in early childhood — the development of the proto-normative capacities (empathy, moral responsiveness, the capacity for genuine preference) that will eventually develop into full rational autonomy. Christensen draws on developmental psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy of mind to argue that these capacities have educologically significant early forms that can be supported or undermined by the quality of early childhood care and education.
Implications for Early Childhood Policy
The educological framework implies a demanding standard for early childhood education: it must support the development of genuine knowing — including the earliest forms of knowing-to — rather than merely preparing children for later schooling or delivering care. This has implications for the training of early childhood educators, the design of early childhood environments, and the policy frameworks that govern early childhood provision.