Young children's engagement in Education for Sustainability has focussed predominantly on their participation in environment-based initiatives or practices. Reasons for this include a notion that wider dimensions of sustainability, including social, political and economic areas of concern can be too complex and overwhelming for young children.…

Theory is an important element of literacy research. Research designs are informed by theories that explain what literacy is, how it develops, and how it should be taught and evaluated. Sociocultural theories emphasize the socially situated nature of literacies engagement and practices, whereas cognitive theories emphasize the underlying skills…

This study examined an extended theory of planned behaviour (TPB), incorporating additional social influences, for predicting parents' and carers' decisions to visit the library with their young children. At Time 1, participants (N = 212) completed a paper-based questionnaire measuring the TPB constructs as well as group norm, parental role…

Much has been written about the decline in Australian literacy standards, as measured by international tests, and concerns have been expressed about the quality of teacher preparation for teaching early literacy to young children in their first years of school. Preservice teacher knowledge of research evidence supporting the essential components…

This article proposes utilising the theory of practice architectures to uncover and make explicit the beliefs and implicit theories of early childhood educators, as well as to examine the conditions out of which they have emerged. The beliefs and implicit theories of early childhood educators influence many early childhood practices and play a…

The author provides an overview of several theories of numeracy acquisition that, despite criticisms, have withstood the passage of time and continue to influence policy and practices in schools. These are followed by a brief review of some recent research in the domain of numeracy learning and teaching. The article ends with some of the current…

Research-informed immersive professional learning in schools is another avenue for pre-service teachers (PSTs) to develop their understanding and reflection about theories, methods, and practices of teaching and learning. From a collaborative research project that aimed at developing the intercultural capabilities of Prep level students in a…

"Learning and Teaching in the Early Years" provides a comprehensive, contemporary and practical introduction to early childhood teaching in Australia. A strong focus on the links between theory, policy and practice firmly aligns this text with the Early Years Learning Framework. Written for students of early childhood programs, this book…

Science education is crucial to young children's discovery and understanding of the world around them. This third edition of Science in Early Childhood has been substantially updated to include the most current research, bringing together an author team of respected science education researchers from across Australia. New chapters address changing…

Verbal interaction with others has been identified as an important forum for children's developing understanding of the thoughts and feelings of others -- their theory of mind. However, conversational interactions in settings and relationships important to young children beyond the home and family have received little attention in research…

The study focuses on how young children are socialised in early childhood education practice in activities with and around toys. A premise of this study is the theoretical notion of sociocultural theory that people do things with artefacts and other cultural tools, and tools do things with people. This is captured in the unit of analysis,…

This article scrutinises the ways in which young children are described and supported as active participants for change within the Australian and Swedish national steering documents for early childhood education. A critical theory lens was applied, in combination with document analysis that looked for concepts related to environment and…

This paper presents some possibilities for applying the linguistic and psychological theories of two dialogists, Mikhail Bakhtin and Jacques Lacan, to the classroom. There is a short summary of how the two theories may interact with each other and then a discussion of their two opposing views of identity formation. Bakhtin was a Russian, coming…

A corpus of literature has argued the fundamental importance of learner engagement in early years' classrooms and identified the association between engagement and academic and social success. In the current education policy, educational theories typically influence curriculum development which, in turn, guides pedagogical practice. In the case of…

This paper examines empirical data with regard to recent theorizing and conceptualizing of children's citizenship. It draws on a doctoral study where the author told social justice stories to one class of children aged five to six years to investigate the active citizenship that the stories set in motion. By imagining this action research study…