For decades the early childhood sector has been pursuing recognition as a profession. In that time the sector in Australia has developed national legislation, an early childhood curriculum document and developed an extensive range of accountability measures. Simultaneously the international arena has been presented with compelling research that…

Provision of early childhood education and care services for refugee families took on heightened challenges during COVID-19 restrictions. We undertook a small-scale study to explore how Australian educators worked with and cared for refugee families during the COVID-19 outbreak in an urban Australian setting. This paper emerges from a larger…

Early childhood education (ECE) teachers have expressed being silenced, indicating their responses to everyday issues of political concern may be hidden. This voicelessness underscores the importance of examining strategies and spaces that incite ECE teachers to vocalise their political dialogues. The pandemic, as a crisis event, within Victoria,…

Research Findings: To explore distinct professional-wellbeing subgroups and variations in turnover intentions, we examined the factor structure of the Early Childhood Professional Wellbeing Questionnaire (McMullen et al., 2020), which was completed online by 368 Australian early childhood educators. Based on educators' scores on the Belonging and…

By the end of 2021, more than 168 million students across the globe had missed a year of face-to-face schooling due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In NSW, Australia, most students engaged in learning from home for eight weeks during 2020 and a further 14 weeks during 2021. This study provides robust empirical evidence on how two years of disruptions to…

The unprecedented challenges posed by the pandemic have required the global world to adapt swiftly and cope with the demands. The pandemic, in particular, has caused severe disruptions to young children's learning experiences, requiring a closer examination of teacher resilience. This complex, individual and context-driven quality requires…

Early childhood (EC) professionals are valuable educators and teachers, and their work involves being caregivers, yet the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted the lack of 'caring about' and 'for' EC professionals. With the increasing focus on educator wellbeing, this paper explores how eight EC professionals understand the role of…

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a major disrupter in the Australian early childhood education (ECE) sector. ECE educators had to respond quickly to frequent surprises and risky challenges. Their stressful, exhausting experiences as they constantly managed change are explored in this paper. The study used an interpretive social constructionist…

There is increasing pressure on Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) settings to align their practices and values to that of schools, with the notion that a quality education in ECEC consists of providing care whilst also ensuring strong learning outcomes. This paper employs the constructs of structural and process quality to theorise the…

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected children's care and education worldwide. This article reports on patterns of participation in early childhood education and care (ECEC) across Australia as influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic and national policies. Using ECEC data from Xplor -- a software platform used across Australian childcare…

The aims of this study were to establish a Research Network of Early Childhood Professionals and to identity network members' top research priorities and preferred research methods. Australian early childhood education (ECE) professionals were invited to participate in a Delphi-style survey. In Stage 1, participants were asked to describe the most…

The spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19) across the globe has had a significant impact on teachers and teaching with countries around the world closing schools in an effort to slow the spread of the virus. Such a mass cessation of traditional face-to-face teaching has required schools and teachers to move rapidly to remote and, primarily, online…

The COVID-19 pandemic has created significant challenges for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) services and families, impacting family access to services and their communication and engagement with educators. This study aimed to examine parents' perspectives of family engagement with ECEC services during the pandemic. Primary caregivers in…

The significant disruption of COVID-19 on schooling has heightened concerns about its impact on educators' wellbeing. The current study examined how educators' worry regarding the COVID-19 pandemic compared to their worry about other extreme events, such as natural disasters and critical incidents (a death or suicide of a child, young person, or…

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of early childhood education and care (ECEC) as an essential service for families and the economy. However, it also exacerbated persisting challenges for the sector which impact educator well-being. This paper reports findings from a qualitative study that investigated Australian early childhood…