Young children's voices have been nearly absent in the study of belonging during the early years. In this article, we propose a more inclusive understanding about "how" to study belonging, as well as "what else" must be studied in early childhood education. The importance of conducting research "with" young children…

This piece is a collective exploration by seven doctoral researchers in Child Studies, who discuss notions of listening to children and young people in a Swedish context. We approach different aspects of listening in research and in practices such as education, psychiatry, and social work. The discussions in this collective writing are an…

The study presented in this article shows some aspects of how children between the ages of three and five and their educators perceive and describe the educational environment in early childhood education in Sweden. The data is generated using "pedagogical walk-throughs" with the educators and "camera tours" together with the…

The governing document of the Swedish SAEC has shifted to become more focused on teaching and learning. The updated curriculum (SNAE, 2011) added new requirements of the educational programme through stating that activities should be 'based on the pupils' needs, interests and initiative' (SNAE, 2011, p. 23). The aim of this study is to explore how…

The article addresses children's perspectives of belonging in early childhood education settings in five European countries. Children's belonging is understood to be dynamic processes that are formed through multiple relations. Twenty children aged 4-8 with diverse backgrounds participated in the study: two boys and two girls from each country.…

This article is based on a meta-approach to the results of two separate studies and concerns the areas of STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) and STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics) in early childhood education. One of the studies focuses on how preschool teachers understand STEM and how it is taught in the…

This study was carried out within a project to promote health and ecosystem services, 'the benefits people obtain from ecosystems', in preschools in Sweden. The paper applies the concept 'affordance' to capture the functional meaning that children assign to different material aspects of their schoolyards before and after the installation of…

This study explored preschool children's knowledge and views of other children's economic situation worldwide, and their self-reported sources of such knowledge. A total of 53 final-year preschool children, aged 5-6, from 12 preschools in Sweden were interviewed. Children's responses were analysed using content analysis and the Structure of the…

Understanding how children experience life in educational settings should be an imperative for educational practitioners, evaluators, and researchers. Listening to children's points of views would facilitate the development of educational settings that meet the needs of children and contribute to their wellbeing and development so that their…

Theory-driven and practice-driven research are often separated, but in this article we shall argue for a research approach that is theory-driven but practice-oriented and shares features with the specific kind of early childhood education pedagogy this research approach has generated, what we refer to as developmental pedagogy (Pramling Samuelsson…