This project/report partnered researchers with teachers from two centres to explore and theorise understandings of children's inquiries and working theories. This project investigated the following questions: (1) What is the nature and content of infants', toddlers' and young children's inquiries and working theories in relation to their everyday…

This paper shares research from a pilot study in which young children were introduced to multiplication and division problems in their first year of school. The focus was on building children's conceptual understanding of the idea of "repeated groups" as a fundamental aspect of multiplication and its relation to division. The particular…

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…

"Te Whariki", the New Zealand early childhood curriculum, has received much praise since its introduction in 1996. There is, however, little research evidence about the implementation or effectiveness of the curriculum in early childhood centres. This article raises questions about the structure and content of "Te Whariki". The…

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…

The English Language Institute (now the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies) at Victoria University of Wellington has a long history of corpus-based vocabulary research, especially after the arrival of the second director of the institute, H. V. George, and the appointment of Helen Barnard, whom George knew in India. George's…

Culturally, childhood is often understood as a time of innocence which can mean that issues such as ecological sustainability are considered too problematic for early childhood practice. By drawing on findings from a research project that focused on issues of ecological sustainability in early childhood centres in New Zealand from Western and…

Researchers and educators recognize that performance assessments and naturalistic observations are well suited for assessing young children's thinking abilities and understanding. The need to establish explicit evaluation criteria to guide assessment decisions has led to the widespread use of rubrics. Rubrics tend to channel assessors to look for…

Research from the United Kingdom suggests that early childhood centres that operate from a multi or integrated service model, offering opportunities for parents to attend to a range of their needs and aspirations, increase the ability and the inclination of families to engage with their child's learning at the early childhood centre. Integrated…

This study investigated early childhood educators' beliefs regarding whether and when they should interact with children. Interviews were conducted with five educators chosen for their alignment with five distinct philosophical approaches representing a range of contemporary early childhood education services in New Zealand. A qualitative approach…

Early intervention for children with behavioural difficulties can be effective in terms of outcomes for both the children and their families. Early intervention can save a child from long-term outcomes such as school failure, peer rejection and later offending. However, in terms of accurate assessment of young children's behavioural difficulties,…

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…

This article draws upon a range of theoretical domains, first to outline the historical rationale for the urgent changes needed to challenge and transform the dominator culture which has justified exploitation of Indigenous peoples and the resources of the earth. It invites educators to reconsider the narratives that are either consciously or…

Considerable interest has emerged in policy frameworks to sustain and encourage democratic participation and responsive pedagogy in early childhood education. Using findings from an evaluation of New Zealand's strategic plan for early childhood education, this article highlights ways in which policy initiatives interacted to support such…

This paper draws on research exploring young children's playful and humorous communication. It explores how playful activity mediates and connects children in complex activity systems where imagination, cognition, and consciousness become distributed across individuals. Children's playfulness is mediated and distributed via artefacts (tools, signs…