Education doctoral programs have an essential role to play in this moment of American history, as we train, teach, guide, and prepare education professionals to learn, unlearn, and lead as antiracist education activists. EdD program faculty and administrators sit in critical roles and must examine our own antiracist beliefs, while also…

The author draws on Lev S. Vygotsky's conception of play and Gunilla Lindqvist's methodology concerning the aesthetics of play to discuss play practice in early childhood classrooms. Based on the study of an educational experiment at a primary school, she discusses how children in a school setting simultaneously engage in developed forms of…

Socio-dramatic play is an everyday occurrence in early childhood education as children create narratives together in shared imagined worlds. The teacher's role in this type of play is less clear and this paper draws on a study using Lindqvist's "playworlds" approach to gain insight into how teachers participate in children's play. In…

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…

The authors discuss loose parts -- pipe cleaners, acorns, fabric, stones, and so forth -- as versatile materials not originally intended for children's play that they can manipulate, modify, and use in their play activities. The authors review the historical foundations of loose parts play, focusing on influential individuals and theories, and…

In Danish early childhood education and care (ECEC), pedagogues traditionally work in a child-centred manner, valuing the children's experiences. During the last 150 years pedagogues have developed expertise in framing everyday life for children while paying double attention to the children's perspectives, on one hand, and to their own pedagogical…

Our theoretical framework is based on Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development focusing on adults' involvement in children's play and we argue that teachers' involvement is crucial in supporting children's play skills. Particularly, this study examines early childhood teachers' (ECTs) sociodramatic and imaginative play skills and their development…

Strong oral language skills are foundational for literacy development and begin before a child enters formal schooling. Oral language development has been related to pretend play abilities in children. Children, particularly those from disadvantaged areas, who enter school with low pretend play levels and oral language abilities, are at risk for…

This paper discusses how multimodal creative inquiry might be conceptualised and implemented for children's meaning-making in science. We consider Halliday's (1978) and Vygotsky's (1987, 2016) theoretical ideas for showing how the most important characteristics of social semiotics are connected to imagination, play-based and creative inquiry for…

This article argues for a reconceptualisation of early childhood education, where learning and development are not only valued by outcome, and aims to investigate how aesthetic processes are organised in ways for the children to be inspired, to compare, explore, and play. Inspired by a Vygotsky perspective and his theories of play, imagination,…

This theoretical article examines the crucial role of play-based learning (PBL) in enhancing the mathematical skills of children in the Early Childhood Phase, referred to as Foundation Phase (Grade R-3) learners, within a South African context. The article argues that the traditional approach to teaching early childhood mathematics, where teachers…

The objectives of this research were 1) to synthesize the model of early childhood Imagineering for developing digital storytelling; 2) to establish the model of early childhood Imagineering for developing digital storytelling; 3) to evaluate the model of early childhood Imagineering for developing digital storytelling. The research methodology…

Increasingly concerns are expressed about the formalisation of early childhood education and the loss of opportunities for children's play in a range of European and European heritage countries. This paper takes up this challenge by discussing, from a cultural-historical perspective, the relations between play and learning in pre-school settings.…

This article shows how two Latina bilingual teachers provided opportunities for their Latinx students from immigrant families to enact their agency in a highly regulated Head Start bilingual preschool classroom in ways that aligned with culturally sustaining pedagogy. Using video-cued ethnography and data from the Blinded Study, the authors center…

As a young teacher, Jane Katch was mentored by Vivian Paley. Katch watched how Paley turned puzzling issues into exciting explorations. Later in her own class, Katch became intrigued by the violent imaginative games that a group of boys were playing. Following Paley's example, Katch immersed herself in trying to examine the play rather than to…