Dr Tonya Rooney

Tonya Rooney is a Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood Education at the Australian Catholic University.

Tonya undertakes research on young children's experience in contemporary society, with a particular emphasis on re-conceptualising children's relations in and with space, time and more-than-human worlds.  Her work is cross-disciplinary and situated at the intersection of philosophy, critical geographies and childhood studies. Tonya's current research focuses on environmental education in the context of climate change and implications of digital technologies for children's learning environments.

Books

Rooney, T & Blaise, M. (2022) Rethinking Environmental Education in a Climate Change Era: Weather Learning in Early Childhood. Routledge.

Edited Book

Taylor, E., & Rooney, T. (eds.) (2017) Surveillance Futures: Social and Ethical Implications of New Technologies for Children and Young People, Routledge.

Book Chapters

Rooney, T (2020) Moved by wind and storms: Imaginings in a changing landscape. In Weather: Spaces, Mobilities and Affects (eds) Barry, K, Borovnik, M & T Edensor, Routledge.

Blaise, M, & Rooney, T (2019) Listening to and telling a rush of Unruly Natureculture gender stories. In Disrupting and Countering Deficits in Early Childhood Education (eds) Fikile Nxumalo and Christopher Brown. Routledge.

Rooney, T (2019) Sticking: The lively matter of playing with sticks. In Feminist Post-Qualitative Research for 21st Century Childhoods (ed. D Hodgins): Bloomsbury.

Taylor, E., & Rooney, T, (2017) Digital Playgrounds: Growing up in a Surveillance Age in Taylor and Rooney (eds) Surveillance Futures: Social and Ethical Implications of New Technologies for Children and Young People, Routledge, London and New York.

Rooney, T. (2017) Spy Kids Too: Encounters with surveillance through games and play in Taylor and Rooney (eds) Surveillance Futures: Social and Ethical Implications of New Technologies for Children and Young People, Routledge, London and New York.

Rooney, T., (2016) Planning for Flexible and Innovative School Spaces: Safety and Risk in Freeman, C & Tranter, P (eds) Risk Protection, Provision and Policy, Vol 12 in Skelton, T. (editor in chief) Geographies of Children and Young People, Springer, Singapore.

Journal Articles

Pollitt, J, Blaise, M, & Rooney, T (2021) Weather bodies: experimenting with dance improvisation in environmental education in the early years Environmental Education Research.

Hennessy, S. & Rooney, T. (2021) Watching change: attuning to the tempo of decay with pumpkin, weather and young children, Children's Geographies. https://doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2021.2007217

White EJ, Rooney T, Gunn AC, Nuttall J.(2021) Understanding how early childhood educators &lsquosee&rsquo learning through digitally cast eyes: Some preliminary concepts concerning the use of digital documentation platforms. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood. 46 (1), 6-18. doi:10.1177/1836939120979066

Rooney, T, Blaise, M & Royds, F (2021) With shadows, dust and mud: Activating weathering-with pedagogies in early childhood education, Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood. 22(2), 109-123. https://doi.org/10.1177/1463949120939202

Rooney, T (2019) Weathering Time: Walking with young children in a changing climate. Childrens Geographies, 17(2), 177-189.  https://doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2018.1474172

Rooney, T, (2018) Weather Worlding: Learning with the elements in early chi ldhood, Environmental Education Research, 24(1) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504622.2016.1217398

Rooney, T (2016) Putting time aside: Navigating the flow of becoming in a posthuman world, Global Studies of Childhood, 6(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/2043610616647639

Rooney, T (2015) Shame and the virtual gaze: Supporting childrens encounters in online worlds Emotion, Space and Society, 16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2015.06.003

Rooney, T., (2015) Higher Stakes: The hidden risks of school security fences for childrens learning environments, Environmental Education Research, 21(6).

Rooney, T. (2012) Childhood spaces in a changing world: exploring the intersection between children and new surveillance technologies, Global Studies of Childhood, 2(4)

Rooney, T., (2010) Trusting children: How do surveillance technologies alter a childs experience of trust, risk and responsibility, Surveillance and Society, 7(3/4)

Other publications

Blaise, M., Rooney, T., & Pollitt, J. (2019). Weather Wanderings. The Journal of Public Pedagogies, 4, Guest edited by S. Springgay & S.E. Truman, Critical Walking Methodologies. http://www.publicpedagogies.org/journal/

Rooney, T (2018) Play-dates and play-spaces The SAGE Encyclopedia of Surveillance, Security and Privacy ed. Bruce A Arrigo, SAGE publications. p749. [Reference work entry]

Follow me on Academia.edu or ResearchGate

Tonya is an accredited HDR supervisor for Masters and PhD students. See ACU supervisor profile here.

Tonya is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education and Arts and teaches subjects on early childhood education, science and sustainability, sociocultural contexts for education and contemporary pedagogies and philosophies of childhood.

Member of the Common World Childhoods Research Collective (www.commonworlds.net) - an interdisciplinary network of researchers concerned with children's relations with place, materiality and the more-than-human world.