Drawing on the social theory concepts of Bourdieu (Field, Capital and Habitus) we explored and gained insights into the perspectives of sub-Saharan African refugee families and preschool educators regarding inclusive education of young children in the South Eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. The study is informed by two curriculum…

Early years professionals wrote about changes in their settings as part of their MA studies, and reflected on the use of theories of leadership in implementing these changes. This article describes a documentary analysis of the scripts produced. Initially basing the study in current knowledge of leadership and change in Early Years settings, the…

Thayer-Bacon uses this opportunity to further explore Ranciere's ideas concerning equality as described in "The Ignorant Schoolmaster" and their connection to democracy, as he explains in "Hatred of Democracy". For Ranciere, intelligence and equality are synonymous terms, just as reason and will are synonymous terms. Ranciere recommends the only…

This paper will explore the role of gender in the construction of shared narratives around outdoor spaces. The paper draws on findings from a long-term project investigating young children's learning and the outdoor curriculum. The project is ongoing and involves children aged 3- to 4-years in a nursery school in England. The children are given…

This article discusses critical issues related to the development and practice of inclusive education of young children, from the perspective of Bourdieu's conceptual lenses of habitus, capital and field. The target question is: How can Bourdieu's lenses of critical social theory be applied to the development and implementation of early childhood…

This paper sets out to look critically at the influences on pedagogy in early years education, at the ways in which it is enacted in practice and the pedagogical perspectives held by practitioners. The aim of the paper is to explore the current state of understanding and suggest areas to be included in an agenda for future research. The factors…

This article considers the possibility that one of the defining characteristics of the New Education, as it related to children in their early years, was its epistemological break with rationalist forms of knowledge and its embrace of empiricism and positivism. It considers, briefly, social theories that identify a similar process at a societal…

Purpose: The purpose of this position paper was to examine the impact of school based parent involvement activities on parent efficacy. Methodology: The paper explores research studies into school based activities on long term parent efficacy. Conclusions: Most schools are involving parents in school-based activities in a variety of ways but the…

The current study is a qualitative case study that investigated the writing development of seven Chinese-speaking English language learners (ELLs) from kindergarten and 3rd-grade ESL classes in an elementary school in the Midwest and intended to discover the factors that affect students' English writing development in a one-year period. Guided by…

American families are affected by a complex array of community, financial, health, and educational stressors. Unfortunately, social policies in the United States have not kept pace with societal demands. The nation is, as a result, in a state of disequilibrium wherein social policies are not in synchrony with the realities of contemporary family…

Early years policy increasingly uses the concept of "citizenship" in relation to children in Australia and worldwide. This concept is used as a taken-for-granted idea; however, there is no singularly agreed-upon answer to the question of what "citizenship" means when used in relation to children, and what practical…

The purpose of this article is to illustrate how pre-school professionals understand the notion of gender-equity work in a Swedish context, in particular play and learning in the pre-school playground. The study draws on socio-cultural and gender theories. Of the four participating pre-schools, three of them have programs that focus especially on…

In this essay, Robert Davis argues that much of the moral anxiety currently surrounding children in Europe and North America emerges at ages and stages curiously familiar from traditional Western constructions of childhood. The symbolism of infancy has proven enduringly effective over the last two centuries in associating the earliest years of…

Self-determination theory identifies three dimensions of parenting--autonomy support versus control, involvement, and structure--as facilitating children's autonomous motivation in school. Research involving children of a range of ages--one-year-olds through adolescents--and from a variety of research labs supports this theory. This work is…

This study provides a basic overview of in-service preschool teachers using drawing as intervention with children. Art therapy is used more often for the smaller children who have more difficulty to describe their emotions and feelings in recognizing words, such as anger, resentment, and different kind of abuses. As a matter of fact, the drawing…