This article is based on a fieldwork study that explored a 1-year-long process of integrating children's human rights-respecting practice in a preschool through a project with a popular culture theme. Drawing on John Dewey's educational theory, educative participatory experience is suggested as a useful concept to further understand and develop…

This case study of classroom practice examined what preservice teachers learned about young children's metacognitive thinking processes and constructivist pedagogy through a classroom project. Thirty preservice teachers engaged in a semester-long metacognitive project in which they conducted four sessions with a group of young children. The…

This study aimed to describe the quality of interactions between early childhood educators (ECEs) and children, as observed in childcare centers and as reported by early childhood educators (N = 15) working with 5 year-old children. To assess ECEs' practices related to the quality of these interactions as observed in childcare centers…

A translanguaging lens in educational research focuses on social, cultural, and power dynamics of language and multilingualism in practice. It also represents a potentially transformative pedagogical practice that centers the languaging practice, power, and agency of multilingual learners to transgress classroom language borders. However,…

Demands placed on early childhood teacher development, teacher candidates, and professionals who prepare future teachers, continue to increase. Although inquiry addresses high-stakes teacher development, research on programs in early childhood professional development schools as a pathway to mediate the increased demand is needed. The purpose of…

Child development ideologies have long informed early childhood education, shaping teachers' perceptions of children and their classroom practices through teacher education programs and education policies. Following the rise of post-developmental perspectives in the early childhood literature, the author uses a critical feminist lens to examine…

This article aims to use the cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) framework to analyse the participation of an early childhood teacher in children's creative play, in order to enhance and support creativity. The study is grounded on Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development, and highlights teacher's play involvement and the arts as a cultural…

In classrooms, reading and responding to literature has been identified as a powerful method for dealing with critical social issues, including bullying and racism. The purpose of this article is to analyze children's literature published from 1997 to 2017 that highlights the intersection of bullying and racism. Our article begins with a…

In this paper, drawing on Bakhtin's carnival theory, I argue that teachers can play a transgressive role--similar to that of the carnival fool--by taking on a story role and by interacting with the children in the drama convention of Teacher-in-Role. The carnival notion of 'decrowning-crowning' allows me to understand how the teachers disguise and…

This ethnographic study utilized border theory to examine how a bilingual Latinx teacher created equitable instruction for Mexican immigrant second-graders in a 50-50 dual-language (DL) classroom in the U.S. Midwest. Approximately half the students in the DL classroom came from Spanish-speaking, working-class homes, and half from English-speaking,…

High-quality teacher-child relationships provide protective and supportive environments that provide social support for children to engage in curriculum and take risks that result in overall school success (Buyse, Verschueren, & Doumen, 2011; Pianta & Stuhlman, 2004). Teachers have the potential to use their relationship as a tool for…

Choice theory identifies five psychological needs: survival, freedom, power, belonging, and fun (Glasser, 1998). There are close parallels with self-determination theory (SDT), which specifies autonomy, competence, and relatedness as essential needs (Deci & Ryan, 2000). This case study examines a very successful example of choice theory…

Whenever the author explains the brain to her second-grade students, the look on their faces is one of simultaneous fascination and relief. What caught her off guard was the relief. In retrospect, it makes pure sense. Of course it was a relief for them to realize that they could affect their brains and its abilities--that nothing was set in stone.…

This paper examines a procedure measuring student competencies in numeracy using school-based assessments, and demonstrates how the procedure informs the school system on quality improvement. The sample consisted of 7648 students, attending three different types of urban schools including government, formal private and low cost private in poor…

It is common in early childhood education (ECE), for student teachers to be asked to reflect on incidents or scenarios that occur while on practicum and relate their reflections to "theory." This process of identification and corroboration, demonstrates the student's familiarity with the dominant developmental narratives within which ECE…