The development of gendered identities during early childhood and youth occurs in a context of "body culture" and the hyper-visibility of "perfect" bodies, which align with traditional gender ideals. Embodied methods can assist to make complexity more visible, and to allow participants to see fluidity, shifts, and becoming.…

This article describes teachers' collaborative inquiry into the pretend "bad guy" play of 12 children in a university laboratory preschool classroom in the northeastern United States. The article describes the inquiry process and includes details and documentation of children's decisions, actions, and interactions related to the bad guy…

Oral storytelling supports young children's learning and development differently than stories read aloud from picture books. It gives children an opportunity to exercise their imagination, communicate effectively, enhance their social literacy, and build community in a different way. Oral storytelling encourages a heightened and more sophisticated…

This study explores a teacher's understandings of the role of play and her use of play in literacy learning serving children from diverse language backgrounds. The participants in this study were a public pre-kindergarten teacher and her class. Data were collected from interviews, informal conversations, observations, and self-reflexive notes. The…