The first years of life lay the foundations for a child's future development and learning. Many countries have increased their financial support for provision of early childhood education and care (ECEC) over the past years. More recently, the focus of debate has been shifting from expanding access to affordable ECEC to enhancing its quality. A…

As more children are growing up in cities than ever before, cities are investigating new ways to become more child-friendly, and to measure their progress towards this goal. Data dashboards are one tool that can help a city set policy priorities, monitor progress, encourage collaboration, inform decisions, increase accountability, and strengthen…

Over a two-year teacher-researcher project in New Zealand we used a mosaic of research methods (Clark, 2010) to capture the perspectives of staff, parents and children. As a team of teachers and academic researchers, we recorded and documented reconceptualised pedagogical practices that included active adult participation in a cluster of early…

In this article, the author presents the challenges faced by early childhood education in 29 countries, according to the World Forum National Representatives and Global Leaders for Young Children. The countries represented in these responses include: Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, Fiji, India, Iran, Iraq, Japan,…

A recent "strategic initiative" literature review developed for the Aotearoa/New Zealand Ministry of Education advised that care and education are no longer distinct. This article explores this suggestion in terms of the politics and the philosophy of early childhood education. It argues that the synthesis of care and education reflects…

Children attending early childhood education and care centres spend a lot of time fitting in with institutional routines. This paper uses ethnographic methods and sociocultural activity theory to describe and analyse the processes whereby young children in an early childhood centre collectively created meaning and interest during potentially…

Sociocultural theories propose that social context and more experienced cultural members are integral to children's development and enculturation into their communities. However, the argument is made that the current Western cultural and structural arrangement of group public child care impedes the successful implementation of sociocultural-based…

This paper discusses insights arising from a recent doctoral study in a New Zealand early childhood setting. I was interested in how young children learn to be part of the group and drawing on a socio-cultural framework carried out a qualitative case study to investigate the enculturation of young children into childcare settings. The particular…

This article reports the results of a survey of 168 New Zealand early childhood workers and describes their health status, behaviours and concerns. The respondents included 73 childcare teachers, 58 kindergarten teachers and 37 home-based educators. Although 92 per cent of respondents reported that they had good or excellent health, statistically…

This paper presents a model of the approaches open to government to ensure that early childhood services are affordable to families. We derived the model from a comparative literature review of affordability approaches taken by government, both in Australia and internationally. The model adds significantly to the literature by proposing a means to…

"Rethinking Early Childhood Education" is alive with the conviction that teaching young children involves values and vision. This anthology collects inspiring stories about social justice teaching with young children. Included here is outstanding writing from childcare teachers, early-grade public school teachers, scholars, and parents.…

This annotated bibliography cites approximately 500 research reports, theses and essays published in New Zealand on the subject of early childhood care and education. The entries have been grouped under 15 headings: child development, child language, early childhood education, ethnic studies, family life, handicapped children, infant behavior,…