Language-rich environments are key to overall quality in early childhood settings, including frequent child-staff interactions around picture books and dramatic play. In a language-rich environment, explicit teaching of literacy concepts, such as phonics, is embedded in authentic and meaningful situations where alphabet letters and sounds are…

This article explores the way in which Professor Celia Genishi structured her expansive scholarship on her fundamental commitment to social justice. Written from the perspective of the author's long collegial relationship and deep regard for the creative dynamics of Genishi's research and writing, the article is based on an interview…

In this article, the authors discuss how Shaun Tan's graphic novel "The Arrival" (2006) opened a polyphonic dialogue with culturally diverse early childhood educators. Using visual, graphic and symbolic languages provided alternative ways for the research participants to express their experiences and understandings of being recent…

This article investigates the recollections of justice, injustice and agency in the autobiographical narratives of a group of Australian immigrants who shared their experiences of starting school. The data consists of 24 autobiographical narrative interviews with participants who started school either overseas and then in Australia, or in…

The ethnographic analysis presented here examines a play routine that centered on two four-year-old female children constructing and being "sassy girls". Data was gathered over the course of six months in one preschool classroom by acting as a participant observer, videotaping, audiotaping, and conducting formal and informal interviews…

Family day care in Australia is currently undergoing rapid "professionalisation" within a national reform agenda that seeks to raise and standardise early childhood service quality. Included within this reform is a requirement that all family day care workers obtain formal qualifications and that workers are referred to as…

Australian women make decisions about returning to paid work and care for their child within a policy environment that presents mixed messages about maternal employment and childcare standards. Against this background, an investigation of first-time mothers' decision-making about workforce participation and childcare was undertaken. Four…

There is a growing body of literature about the potential for early childhood settings to serve as community hubs to develop relationships with families. However, there is limited information about the ways in which families and early childhood staff interface in defining what constitutes "quality" within settings. Researchers have rarely studied…

The article seeks to investigate the methods of teaching and learning English as an additional language in primary education, and to identify the most appropriate and effective means of achieving this. The study tracks a cohort of children from reception to Year 2. Data collection draws on the strengths of both qualitative and quantitative…

There is an ongoing debate over the nature and necessity of teacher "professionalism", particularly in early childhood education. In England, this sector was a particular focus of the education policies of Labour governments in the 2000s, and this had a significant impact on early childhood teachers and classrooms. This article examines the impact…

Knowledge of the history and development of early childhood development in Uganda is paramount if we are to know how far we have come and where we are going. This article explores the introduction of early childhood development in Ugandan policy and government interventions from 1960 to 2011. Data was obtained from a review of available early…

Within early childhood education two ideas are firmly held: that play is the best way for children to learn, and that parents are partners in the child's learning. While these ideas have been explored, limited research to date has investigated the confluence of the two--how parents of young children view the concept of play. This article…

This qualitative research study was designed to explore the perceptions of parents with low income regarding the effects of involvement in a comprehensive preschool program on their children's development and on the families' quality of life. A purposeful sample of parents who became actively involved in the preschool community was interviewed…

This was a two-phase qualitative study that investigated the humorous aspects of humorous photographs young children took in their school and home environment, which were examined in the context of the theory of the absurd and the empowerment theory. The participants in the study were six children--three boys and three girls--between the ages of…

Social media sites, such as message boards and blogs, provide innovative data sources for researchers as these sites feature people sharing advice and discussing issues in a public arena. Research has found the online context can encourage people to reveal more information than do such traditional methods as interviews or focus groups. However,…