Play, and especially free play, offers a unique opportunity for children to act with agency. Yet the regulated and routinized structure of early childhood education and care settings, impedes children's agentic action which is limited by adult-imposed rules. The present cross-cultural study aims to explore the extent to which Early Childhood…

Increased emphasis on academics has led to play becoming a controversial and topical issue in the field of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). Although play has been extensively researched we still lack consensus on what play is and how play is actually implemented and used in ECEC classrooms. The present cross-cultural study aims at…

Drawing on kindergarten teachers' and University departments' reactions to the Greek government's initiative to adopt an integrated Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) system, the present study aimed to explore how various ECEC professional groups working in the two main preschool programs operating in Greece define different aspects…

Acknowledging the fact that parental engagement is more beneficial during early childhood compared to other developmental stages many countries have institutionalised parental engagement. In Nigeria, the government has taken initiatives in order to involve parents in their child's development by encouraging the establishment of School Management…

Although Greece has a dichotomous system both in terms of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) services and in terms of ECEC workers' preparation programmes, in 2016 Greek government's Organization for ECEC organized an open colloquy about the adoption of a 'Unified National Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care', causing a heated…