Jean Piaget, whose work continues to be very influential in early childhood education, associated young children's animism with their 'primitive thought' claiming children remain animists until they reach a more advanced and rational stage of development. This article proposes a rethinking of the Piagetian view of animism, suggesting instead that…

Parents assessed the development of 12,081 two- to six-year-old children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) quarterly for three years on five subscales: combinatorial receptive language, expressive language, sociability, sensory awareness, and health. Longer duration of time spent with an adult actively involved in the same activity (termed here…

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.…

Disasters continue to have adverse effects around the globe leaving many lives susceptible to hazards and fatalities most especially children. The Philippines, known to be one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world, experiences earthquakes, typhoons, and flooding yearly. For the reason of the country's vulnerability to disasters, it is…

Emerging quantitative research found self-compassion to be a unique predictor of parental stress in parents of children with ASD above other predictors. However, research on the lived experience of self-compassion in families of children with ASD is limited. Using a qualitative thematic analysis approach, 19 mothers of children with ASD with a…

In this article, the authors argue for a rethinking of kindergarten education from a critical feminist perspective. They illustrate how the devaluation and denigration of femininity and care - otherwise known as femmephobia - that permeates patriarchal societies is present in the seemingly innocent spaces of play in kindergarten. Tracing…

This study examined the nature of effort towards challenge in stories recommended for young children in Indonesian schools. One hundred and nine stories with challenge information, recommended by the Indonesian government for Years 1 and 2 were analyzed, using a combination of content and structural analyses. When exploring the characters' efforts…

Early childhood is an important time for building children's affinity with nature and the environment. Early childhood professionals play a crucial role in developing young children's understanding of the natural world. Over the past 50 years, there has been a movement in early childhood education and care contexts to provide young children with…

The purpose of the study is to reveal the reasons for young children to like and dislike playing with their friends. There were two groups in the study. The first group included 147 preschool children who were in the age group of 5-6 years and were living in Turkey. The second group included 60 preschool children who were in the age group of 5-6…

The purpose of this study is to investigate how gender manifests itself in Norwegian kindergarten, as observed by students during three weeks' work experience. The empirical basis was collated from 40 accounts of work experience from 20 kindergartens. Student kindergarten teachers' observations of how gender is expressed in kindergarten forms the…

This article shares three vignettes, drawn from the life experience of its authors and five years of research at two schools, to illustrate the "choice" many males are forced to make between normalized "masculine" indifference and a stigmatized caring relationship with the natural world. We suggest this dissociation results,…

In 2015, the British government implemented a national Baseline Assessment policy for children at the start of their Reception Year (aged 4-5 years) in England. Adding further assessment to the national Early Years Foundation Stage, the Baseline policy was predicated on reform for improved school accountability, with a focus on measurement of both…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore sense-making of early childhood (EC) leaders in EC services rated as exceeding/excellent in Australian accreditation. Design/methodology/approach: An interpretivist ontology and social constructivist epistemology informs the study. The conceptual framework uses the concept of sense-making to explore…

This phenomenological study explored six single mothers' experiences of support at their young children's school. Themes resulting from interpretative phenomenological analysis suggest the single mothers experienced tangible (e.g., school resources, school-wide events, structural flexibility, teachers' formal communication) and intangible (e.g.,…

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti, 2001) highlights our role as educators in the "preparation of the child for responsible life in a free society, in the spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, equality of sexes, and friendship among all peoples" (Article 29(1)(d)). "Te…