This paper attempts to explore young children's construction of femininities in a kindergarten in Indonesia. Using a postdevelopmentalist and postcolonial approach, this paper seeks to understand how young children in the school develop, negotiate and resist existing gender construction. This paper is based on an ethnography research conducted in…

Policy makers around the world increasingly mandate play-based learning in kindergarten classrooms, a pedagogical approach backed by research espousing not only the developmental appropriateness of play-based learning for this age group but also the benefits to students' academic achievement. Despite these mandates, researchers continue to see a…

The article reports and reflects on a study of kindergarten staff member's gendered attitudes. The empirical part consists of answers to a questionnaire from some 700 staff members of all 80 kindergartens in two Danish municipalities. The theoretical approach is informed by the framework of Pierre Bourdieu and the Mary Douglas' Grid Group Cultural…

Food practices are culturally and historically situated, and so are conceptions of 'risk'. Comparative studies of food practices can highlight these cultural norms and conceptions. In this article we will present results from a study that investigated food practices in Norwegian and French kindergartens with a particular focus on constructions of…

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) Ministry of Social Affairs has launched an initiative to revive traditional play so as to increase children's knowledge of the UAE's rich culture, traditions and heritage. Inspired by the initiative, this qualitative study is a synthesis of locally written historical accounts interlaced with 52 Emirati kindergarten…

Communication is a multidimensional process. No matter what the field of the interaction is, there is always a crucial point in terms of the negotiation of social roles. This becomes more apparent in the field of education where institutional norms influence not only the children's behaviour, but at the same time the shaping of their…

This article details my racialized awakenings as a White kindergarten teacher after being called a racist by a parent of one of my students. I chronicle critical reflections of myself and my school in terms of latent institutional racism and actions. I share the actions that I have begun in my efforts to counter racism and move toward teaching for…

This article describes a means of evaluating early years classrooms from the perspective of the child's experience. Nine key themes, such as motivation and independence, are identified as representing significant aspects of a high-quality environment for learning. The manner in which these manifest themselves in relation to the three elements of…