Academic biography

Dr. Chloë Keegan is an Assistant Professor in the School of Language, Literacy and Early Childhood Education at Dublin City University (DCU), Ireland. She has over a decade of experience working across a variety of important roles including as an early years educator and manager, content developer for online degree programmes, national early childhood specialist specialising in outdoors and nature, and a children and disability researcher.

Chloë completed her Ph.D at Maynooth University, where her research investigated how adult-regimented daily routines in early childhood settings can become sites of power struggles that interfere with children's self-rhythm and participation in everyday experiences. Her doctoral research captured two-and-a-half to five-year-old children's perspectives through GoPro cameras operated by the children themselves, revealing how children navigate, comply and resist power dynamics with adult educators. A key insight was the term baby jail used by a three-year-old to describe his experiences of being in preschool - an illustration of how adult-enforced routines constrain children's basic autonomy. While routines majorly produced patterns of unquestioned or blind compliance, some children demonstrated awareness of power and acted strategically to assert their participation, resulting in the development of the Six Personas of Participation Framework.

Chloë has also spend significant time over the years conducting research and analysis for NGOs and public bodies within the themes of nature, risky play, sustainability, disability rights and public perceptions of disability, and children's digital rights.