This research focuses on using digital photography to record observations of young children. The observations discussed are young children engaging with music as a communicative language. Digital media has become an inexpensive method to collect research data to communicate children's activities in early learning settings. Like all technologies,…

Children engage in a multitude of reciprocal relationships of care within Early Childhood Care and Education settings; they act as both care-receivers and care-givers. In order to better understand the ways in which children construct care (i.e. as they receive it and provide it to others), this study investigated how 15 three- to five-year-olds…

Early childhood education settings are characterized by the use of play-based learning and the assessment of children's play by teachers to promote further learning. A problem with technology use in early childhood settings is that little is known about how children learn to use technologies through play. This lack of knowledge makes it difficult…

Over the past 200 years, early childhood provision in Germany has primarily been oriented towards the goal of work-care reconciliation. Even though there is a long tradition in Germany of education-oriented approaches, the primary goal has always been care. The extensive development of early childhood centres for children under three years of age…

The over-arching aim of this study was to elucidate and interpret topics that are relevant to how we understand children's experiences and creation of meaning in natural landscapes and places within these landscapes. Following two nature-kindergarten groups regularly over ten months, the data for this ethnographic study consist of constructed…

Research about infants' capacity to communicate using cries, smiles and sophisticated emotional strategies to connect with adults in their lives has predominantly emerged from the field of developmental psychology, with relatively limited attention to how babies enact such communicative practices with key adults in naturalistic settings. This…

This study examines how acceptable play was framed for a class of pre-Kindergarten children by their teacher and classroom aide. Using comic subjectivity theory [Zupancic, A. (2008). "The odd one in: On comedy." Cambridge: MIT Press], the author explores how children's playing at pretend violence (bad guy and pretend gun play) is…

This article aims to explore young children's (from one to three years old) perspectives of the role and pedagogy of educators in play in an Icelandic preschool. The intention is to explore the meaning that children put into involving educators in their play and whether the children experience educators' actions as a resource for their play. The…

This case study examines the development of self-regulation, socially, cognitively and emotionally, through the use of play in the curriculum in five preschool classrooms for children ages 2-5 years old at a university laboratory school. Five teachers were interviewed about their deliberate use of play to support the development of self-regulation…

This paper focuses upon the micro level of the pre-school classroom, taking the example of the Indian Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS), and the discourse of "child-centred" pedagogy that is often associated with quality pre-schooling. Through an analysis of visual data, semi-structured and film elicitation interviews drawn…

This study builds on recent research into young children's pretend play. Social literacy practices and events in which children engaged were investigated to reveal features of their meaning making. Drawing on Vygotsky's view of the social nature of symbol use and writing, it stresses the significance of cultural and social features of meanings and…

This study explores children's narratives of their curiosity and imagination through innovative use of an information technology app--Our Story. Novel use of the app allowed children to express and record their opinions they considered significant to them. The research captured children's approaches to everyday situations through their play.…

This action research study investigates how the implementation of a Choice-Based Art curriculum might foster the development of self-determination in pre-kindergarten through first-grade students with diverse learning needs. Through a case study conducted over a ten-week period, the participant-researcher, an art teacher at a non-profit community…

The purpose of this study was to investigate elementary students' perceptions of PE teacher credibility. Eight high- and low-skilled students from grades 3 and 5 were selected from a school employing a PE teacher holding a National Board Certification. Data were collected in the school setting utilizing observations, field notes, an open-ended…

This study compares the stances of practitioners, parents and the quality assurance authority on the assessment of learning in New Zealand (NZ) early childhood education (ECE). The phenomenographic interview participants include practitioners (24) and parents (11) from 11 ECE settings. The reports issued by the Education Review Office (ERO) on all…