Tracy Young

Biography

I am a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education at Southern Cross University and the Course Coordinator for Early Childhood Programs at the Melbourne Campus. With over 30 years of experience as an environmental educator and early childhood teacher, my career spans roles as a researcher and tertiary educator in Initial Teacher Education.

Research

My research focuses on child-animal relations, environmental education, and childhood studies, addressing themes of education and multispecies interactions amidst challenging ecological times. My PhD was an intergenerational inquiry with children, parents, grandparents and the animals in their family home and the early childhood setting the children attended. Being able to integrate early childhood education, environmental education, and human-animal studies through a critical posthuman and post-qualitative lens has contributed to broader understandings of early childhood education in relation to both human and non-human entities.

I am available to supervise Masters and Doctoral projects in early childhood education, environmental education, multispecies inquiry, and related ‘post’ theories and methodologies.

Teaching

My teaching spans three key areas: philosophy (child development, ecological ethics, Indigenous perspectives), Ecology (sustainability and nature pedagogies), and early childhood education (leadership, curriculum and assessment, advocacy, and research ethics). My teaching philosophy aligns with student self-realisation and active learning where I integrate real-life assessment tasks, case studies, provocations and critical thinking to engage pre-service teachers.