Children's citizenship in early childhood education and care is the root of democracy, equity, and sustainability. In Aotearoa New Zealand, "Te Whariki" has a strong aspiration for children as competent and active citizens. Early childhood settings are sites where children may have opportunities to act as powerful citizens. Employing…

In response to growing attention to young children's citizenship, and recent calls for critique of Western discourses and practices, we explore the movement of Western 'pioneering' pedagogies of early childhood education (ECE) and their localisation in Aotearoa New Zealand. Employing a poststructural positioning, and theoretical devices drawn from…

Recognising children as active and competent citizens holds promise for early childhood research and pedagogies worldwide. Researchers in China have not previously explored young children's citizenship in detail. The project that is the focus of this article sought to address this research gap. Moss' critical approach and Chen's "Asia as…

Early childhood teachers' professional learning and development (PLD) is a significant factor in the provision of quality early childhood education (ECE), yet gaining a full picture of PLD in the New Zealand ECE context is problematic. Information about government-funded PLD programmes is available through evaluations, however, teachers access PLD…

Excursions (field trips) can provide new and exciting learning opportunities outside schools and early childhood education (ECE) centres, adding new dimensions to an education programme. This article presents the findings from two doctoral studies by Terreni (2017) and Ryder (2019). Terreni, as part of a mixed-method approach, undertook a…

Purpose: The increase in the enrolments of immigrant children in New Zealand seems to have posed great challenges to early childhood education services when it comes to developing the children's English language acquisition. This qualitative case study explored how New Zealand early childhood teachers develop the English language acquisition of…

This case study explores child, parent, teacher, and school-leader perspectives of a play-based learning (Pb-L) approach in one new-entrant classroom. Data were gathered through focus groups, interviews and an online survey. Findings indicate that children valued the opportunity for self-initiated, handson, interest-based exploration and social…

Young children's increased engagement with technology and "screen time" has created growing concern about children's opportunities for connecting with nature. This article draws on data from three early childhood education (ECE) settings in New Zealand that prioritise the provision of regular experiences of natural outdoor environments.…

This article describes a study of early childhood teachers' understanding of teaching and learning in children 4 and 5 years of age in technology education. The research aimed at assisting teachers' understanding of learning in technology using a developed framework. This study investigated the development of dispositions and attitudes including…

New Zealand's increasingly heterogeneous population places manifold demands on the education sector to integrate children who do not speak English as a first language. Limited research exists on how minority language children acquire English within early childhood education settings and how teachers support this development. This article reports…

This comparative study investigated the experiences of starting childcare of three immigrant children in three different learning environments in New Zealand. The notion of learning environment was explored as a way of thinking about how different people, places, and approaches to learning have interacted to create a particular site for the…

Outdoor play environments offer a wide range of potential affordances to both teachers and children. Teachers' pedagogy is a strong determining factor in children's ability to utilise the affordances of a particular environment. This article describes the way in which a group of teachers and children in a New Zealand education and care centre…

This article examines small-scale research into what passion might mean to early childhood teachers in the context of Aotearoa New Zealand. The catalyst for this research was twofold: Moyles' work in the United Kingdom on passion, professionalism and paradox, and the author's personal encounters with the distinct views in the teaching community on…

This study examined if professional development with teachers would increase children's literacy skills in low socioeconomic early childhood settings in New Zealand and would lead to changes in teachers' beliefs and practices and children's abilities over an 8 week intervention period. Research indicates that children who have alphabetic and…

Environmental experiences often engage learners and create an intention to act, which is then not followed through once the learner is removed from the environment. This study utilized an exploratory, interpretive framework with younger primary school classes to investigate if transfer of learning from field trip experiences "in" and…