This article explores trends and statistics specific to the mental health status of children from both the Canadian and the global contexts to inform a conversation on the environmental conditions and experiences that impact the mental health of young children. The research described here focused on the intersection between mental health and early…

In 1900, London infant school head teacher and Froebelian, Lucy R. Latter, travelled to southern India to introduce kindergarten pedagogy to schools in Mysore. A hundred years later Froebelians continue to implement projects in very different environments from kindergarten's European roots, including Soweto, South Africa and Kolkata, India. This…

This article reports on the findings of manipulative analyses performed by preservice and in-service teachers in an early childhood teacher education program mathematics methods course. The activities are intended to model and promote mathematical analyses for better discrimination between mathematics manipulatives by early childhood teachers.…

Children's intra-actions with the natural world offer an important lens to revisit notions of literacies. They allow for a decentring of humans--here children--as actors. Also, forest schools and nature-based learning programmes are increasingly erupting across North America, although more commonplace in Europe for a longer period. In this…

This paper explores language practice in early childhood education for children new to the majority language, discussing how language practice can be transformed through actions such as reflexive dialogues with educators. In a Swedish action-research project, educators and researchers collaborated in reflexive dialogues to develop language…

In this conceptual article, the authors examine the context of early childhood education and care in England and the underpinning predominant ideologies to explore how these impact on the framing of leadership. The English context entails several contradictions (antinomies) at ontological, epistemological and axiological levels, and is heavily…

This colloquium argues that writings on leadership in the early years commonly assume a service ethos. The aim of nurseries and other early childhood settings is to provide a service for children and their parents, and the task of leadership is seen to be to find effective ways of defining and realizing this aim. But increasingly, and especially…

As the internet and internet-enabled devices have become more accessible, people around the world now have life-changing information at their fingertips, available at a speed and ease unfathomable just a generation ago. While the information age certainly has its pitfalls, the possibilities for economic and social progress are seemingly limitless.…

In Australia, over 900,000 children attend some type of early childhood education and care service. Many of these children have learning difficulties and early childhood teachers play a significant role in identifying children's needs and working with other professionals to instigate and/or implement appropriate interventions. When educators and…

This article begins with an introduction to the concept of urban education. Next, the author addresses the future challenge of long-term and developmental perspective in this field, as contrasted with perspectives held by prekindergarten and preschool professionals in early childhood education. Her hope is that this challenge will be addressed in…

This reflective narrative explores the voices of two participants in the Early Childhood Professional Mentoring Group (ECPMG), created in response to our graduates' concerns about their lack of support as they entered the field of inclusive early childhood education. Building on their existing relationships with each other, and with us as their…

The preparation of teachers for diversity within and between schools is a growing focus in teacher education worldwide, and particularly in South Africa, where the education landscape has shifted dramatically since the democratic elections of 1994. While diversity is a recurring theme in the literature, the matter of contextual diversity still…

Person-centered therapy (PCT) comes from the experiential and relationship-oriented therapy tradition. It is considered to be a third force in therapeutic engagement, along with the psychoanalytic and behavioral approaches. PCT is based on faith in and empowerment of human beings to be joyful, creative, self-fulfilled and willing and able to…

This article explores the possibility of conceiving preschool music activities as a way of forming spaces of participation with society's youngest. The discussion draws on Hannah Arendt's ([1958] 1998) definition of public spheres, and the argumentation is closely linked to an empirical example from musicking events with 1-3 year olds in a…

This paper examines how early childhood policy initiatives in the United Kingdom and internationally currently reflect neoliberal concerns with school readiness in the development of human capital and what diverse theoretical perspectives might offer. The focus is a project involving a group of early childhood academics from one university and a…