Purpose: This article provides an exploration of the internal relationship between ethics and pedagogy in early childhood education and care (ECEC). It aims at a clarification of the interrelationships between political and administrative government, the absence/presence of a pedagogical foundation, and the need for a code of ethics.…

In this article I investigate how corporate Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) providers negotiate their position by contributing to a national ECEC policy development process. I discuss how their political engagement connects to changes in the institutional arrangements of the ECEC sector. The ECEC provider corporations' written responses…

In this paper I argue for a necessary -- and possible -- paradigmatic shift in early childhood scholarship that embraces multiplicity, diversity, ambiguity, uncertainty and shared situated knowledge creation in response to a profoundly changed global context. The contours of the new paradigm are already emerging as three interconnected…

While an increasing body of Australian and international research has explored the relationship between media and education, few studies have examined this relationship in the context of early childhood education. This paper contributes to this research gap by reporting on a corpus-assisted discourse analysis of how childcare is represented in 801…

Early childhood education changed in the twentieth century, from mother-at-home-care in the 1950s, to professional early education today. Theoretical and social-political choices of pioneers in ECE had a profound impact on the way children's education is conceptualized. We argue from a social constructivist perspective. The oral history method is…

The public funding of early years education and care in England has been transformed. Historically, local councils had the main responsibility for decisions regarding nursery education and child day care, but in 1996 the Conservative government introduced a nursery education voucher scheme. Parents of four-year-olds could exchange the voucher for…

We discuss oral history interviews with academics who laid the foundation of research and pedagogies in daycare for under three-year-olds in Europe and North and South America since the 1970s. Their work is clearly embedded in the social-political context of their country: the left-wing programmes for disadvantaged families in the U.S.A.;…

This article contributes to the global conversation about generating a "vision" in early childhood education and care policy by reporting on an investigation of influences on politicians' policy decisions in early childhood education and care in Australia. This article is inspired by the provocations of social and political theorists who…

A significant and growing percentage of the children enrolled in early childhood education and care (ECEC) programs in Europe and the United States are children of recent im/migrants. For most young (3-5 years old) children of parents who have come from other countries, ECEC settings are the first context in which they come face to face with…