In order to trouble the rhetoric of caring spaces like home that are taken for granted in schools, I consider how the western neoliberal subject remains tethered to normalcy in ways that sustain practices of conditional inclusion. My aim is to persist in questioning normalcy, while also endeavouring to reimagine distinctly different relational…

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…

Everyday cultural resources that originate outside school offer possibilities for multimodal creativity and identity play, as children consume, transform and produce multimodal texts. In this study, Kyle, a boy in elementary school, fluidly performed social identities and engaged in playful and parodic rescripting of identities and resources from…

This research explored 10 young female Shi'i Muslim Arabic-Canadian students' experiences associated with wearing the Hijab (headscarf) within their home, community, and predominantly White Canadian public elementary school environments. The in-depth case study sought to address the dearth of information about Shi'is' experiences in schools…

Using a narrative autoethnographical approach, this article details the identity-related and social repercussions of my experiences as a former victim of social, verbal, and physical bullying in public Franco-Ontarian elementary (1986-1994) and high (1994-1999) schools. The highlighted experiences are more specifically correlated with social…

Inclusive education provides learning opportunities for children with disabilities in regular settings with other children. Despite the prevalence of inclusive education, few qualitative studies have adequately explored young children's perspectives on inclusion. This paper reviews the findings of a preliminary qualitative study where play-based…

In the "Journal of Moral Education," 39(2), Brenda Almond and Lawrence Blum debate the importance of tolerance versus acceptance in sex education. Blum defines acceptance as "positive regard", in contradistinction to mere tolerance, "a live and let live attitude toward others, an acceptance of coexistence, but with a…

This article presents a case study of an exploration of gender roles in a second-grade classroom. The author discusses some of the discursive identities in which she and her students are positioned, and then uses the picture book William's Doll to introduce a discussion of discursive gender identities with her students. She then asks students to…

This article introduces Karleen Pendleton Jimenez's book for young children, "Are You a Boy or a Girl?", represents a landmark achievement in queer literature in the early childhood classroom and deserves special attention by pre-school and primary teachers, academics working in early childhood education, and parents, particularly…

For well over 12 years the Human Sexuality Program within Social Work Services of the Toronto District School Board has been serving lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender (LGBT) students, teachers, parents and their families. Alongside individual, family and group support to the LGBT communities in the board, the program has also been…