This study draws on data from TALIS Starting Strong 2018, an international survey of early childhood education and care (ECEC) staff and leaders, to examine the staff roles (leader, teacher, assistant, specialised staff, intern, other) that are included in ECEC centres in nine countries: Chile, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Korea,…

Early learning agendas are currently being introduced in early childhood education and care (ECEC) by transnational organizations such as the EU and OECD. In this paper, we focus on Denmark, where such agendas interweave with a pedagogical tradition emphasizing a child-centered approach and children's play. Based on ethnographic research, we…

Drawing on ethnographic data from two Romanian and two Danish nurseries, we explore the agency of children aged 9 months to 2.5 years. Considering action, time, and place, the article reflects on crying as one of the children's agentic practices. We identified five predominant types of crying and analysed peers' and caregivers' perceptions and…

This article compares the institutional bereavements response systems available in Danish and Norwegian daycare institutions when encountering critical illness or death among attached families. Both countries' structured responses are developed around bereavement response plans that highlights the actions, which should be taken by institution…

This article explores how complex globalization processes play out in early childhood education (ECE) in Denmark. The article builds on two concepts of globalization: First, we understand globalization as the ways in which transnational educational policy discourses characterized by neoliberal pedagogical values affect national and local policies.…

With inspiration from research in linguistic ethnography and children's perspectives, this article examines children's language use in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in a child perspective. The article is based on ethnographic fieldwork including video recordings from four children's entire days in a Danish day care centre. A multimodal…

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, in this article, I tell the story of a particular Syrian family and their encounter with a day-care institution in Denmark -- and by extension with the Danish state. In doing so, I highlight how the initially legitimate worries and genuine care of the institution turned into a form of 'coercive concern'…

Based on fieldwork conducted in two day care centres in Denmark, this paper explores knowledge and action as relational and intertwined phenomena in nursery teaching. Engaging with perspectives from actor network theory, emphasis is put on the socio-material distribution of knowing and acting. That is, how the nursery teacher becomes part of…

Interpersonal interactions during childhood form the foundation for development and learning (Tomasello, 2014; Vygotsky, 1962, 1978). Numerous studies have documented the impact of interactions between preschool teachers and preschool-aged children between 3 and 6 years of age (e.g., Denham et al., 2003; Hamre, Hatfield, Pianta & Jamil, 2013).…

Young people in rural areas are gradually convinced that they have to leave their homes for education. They move, and hereby amplify the problem of local economic and demographic decline. The article explores the role of education as well as the social dynamics behind this process in a minor community in Denmark. Drawing on children and young…

Structural quality in childcare centers is considered a precondition for process quality, which in turn is related to children's outcomes. However, the evidence on relations between structural and process quality is mixed. Moreover, despite strong theoretical claims, empirical evidence supporting the indirect relation of structural features…

Inspired by perspectives from actor-network theory, this paper challenges key assumptions in evidence-based pedagogies. Through a multi-sited analysis of the evidence-based pedagogy "Dialogic Reading" (DR) in the area of early childhood education and care in Denmark, the paper explores how DR is enacted as part of an assemblage of tests,…

The present article reports results of a real-world effectiveness trial conducted in Denmark with six thousand four hundred eighty-three 3- to 6-year-olds designed to improve children's language and preliteracy skills. Children in 144 child cares were assigned to a control condition or one of three planned variations of a 20-week storybook-based…

Research has shown the potential for early childhood education and care (ECEC) in making a difference for all children. However, research also highlights how hard overcoming the "gaps" between children from differing social backgrounds still is. The overall aim of this article is to examine the impact of a professional development…

Several early literacy programmes have documented their effectiveness in enhancing children's early literacy and language development. Despite recent interest in implementing evidence-based programmes, only a few studies have set out to capture the implementation process of early literacy programmes as seen from the programme users' perspectives.…