The purpose of this case study was to explore how the discourses and pedagogy of Mariana, an urban early childhood educator in the Northeastern United States, were informed by the construct of hope as an aspect of her professional practice. Like many of her students, Mariana was an immigrant and learned English as a second language. Data for this…

In this article, the authors use narrative inquiry methodology to engage with one Prekindergarten teacher and three newcomer parents in a Western Canadian school. Interested in addressing the unique learning and social needs of these particular parents and family members, as a way of strengthening parents and families as well as enhancing…

The aim of this article is to explore democracy and agency for children with diverse backgrounds in Icelandic early childhood education and care. In the last decade, Icelandic society has become more multicultural, as reflected in the increasing number of children in preschools with a home language other than Icelandic. Hence, this article also…

The main contribution of this paper is to highlight the pedagogical orientations of reception teachers in Norwegian schools. I explore reception teachers' approaches and their understanding of their own approaches when interacting with newly arrived minority language pupils (NAMLPs). The theoretical basis of the paper is L.S. Vygotsky's work,…

This article reports on findings from a year-long research project conducted during the 2012-2013 school year in a PK-12 school district, located in the Mountain West region of the United States, utilizing the Photovoice method. The findings in the project point to the important critical counter-narratives Spanish-speaking immigrant parents…

This article documents what happened in a first grade classroom when young Latina/o children of immigrants had consistent classroom-based opportunities to use their agency in their learning. Applying theoretical constructs from development economics to data from the Agency and Young Children ethnographic project, we explore three forms of agency…

This article investigates the recollections of justice, injustice and agency in the autobiographical narratives of a group of Australian immigrants who shared their experiences of starting school. The data consists of 24 autobiographical narrative interviews with participants who started school either overseas and then in Australia, or in…

In this essay, Jennifer Keys Adair aims to clarify the concept of "agency" as a tool for improving the educational experiences of young children in the early grades. She conceptualizes agency in the context of schooling as the ability to influence what and how something is learned in order to expand capabilities, drawing on economic…

There has been much debate on the politics and pedagogies of bilingual education in K-12 schools, but conspicuously absent in this debate are institutions of higher education. English-only ideologies are deeply embedded and rarely questioned in U.S. institutions of higher education, which predominantly require English language proficiency to…

This volume contains papers submitted to the 11th Annual International Conference of the Bulgarian Comparative Education Society (BCES), held in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, 14-17 May 2013, and papers submitted to the 1st International Distance Partner Conference, organized by the International Research Centre "Scientific Cooperation,"…

This volume contains papers submitted to the 12th Annual International Conference of the Bulgarian Comparative Education Society (BCES), held in Sofia and Nessebar, Bulgaria, in June 2014, and papers submitted to the 2nd International Partner Conference, organized by the International Research Centre 'Scientific Cooperation,' Rostov-on-Don,…