Amanda White

Amanda joined NZCER in July 2022. Prior to this, Amanda worked as a speech-language therapist for over 20 years, with experience in both New Zealand and UK education systems (Scotland and England).

Amanda recently completed her PhD on early childhood literacies in a diverse community of Aotearoa New Zealand. For her doctoral research, Amanda used video methods to explore multimodal story interactions between infants/toddlers and others in their family homes and early childhood education (ECE) settings.

Amanda’s current research interests include:

• Multimodal communication
• Early childhood literacies
• Oral language development
• Home-education partnerships
• Sociocultural perspectives on learning

Qualifications

• PhD in Education, University of Auckland
• BSLT (Hons), University of Canterbury
• BA (Hons) in Education, University of Canterbury

Journal publications

• Williamson, J., White, A., and Hedges, H. (2023). Connecting and communicating: Story interactions in the early years. Early Childhood Folio, 27(1), pp. 3-8.
• White, A., Stagg Peterson, S., and Quigan, E. (2022). Young children co-constructing stories with educators. Early Childhood Folio, 26(2), pp. 13-19.
• White, A., Gaffney, J.S., and Hedges, H. (2021). Active, competent communicators: Lexie’s story. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/14687984211047998
• White, A. and Padtoc, I. (2021). Supporting toddlers as competent story navigators across home and early childhood contexts. Early Childhood Folio, 25(2), pp. 3-8.
• Jacobs, M., Harvey, N., and White, A. (2021). Parents and whānau as experts in their worlds: Valuing family pedagogies in early childhood. Kōtuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online, 16(2), pp. 265-282.