Many early childhood practitioners use pedagogical documentation as an important process that enables children's thinking to be represented in a form that can be readily shared with others (Dahlberg et al., 1999). Documentation in the form of a professional portfolio provides a vehicle for reflection and an appreciation of the complexities and…

Parental involvement and participation, partnership with parents, and community-focused development are important features of government initiatives such as the Sure Start project for children under four years of age and their families. A common feature of the rhetoric is "empowerment" as a means of achieving this. This article describes the…

This paper considers practitioners' beliefs about the literacy curriculum in four early years settings in England and the impact on the literacy experiences of the children in these settings. All four settings were working with the Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage (QCA/DfEE, 2000) and represent the range of provision in England. One…

This paper presents the main results of a comparative study carried out by a French-Japanese research team. Its focus is the daily life of under-ones in day care centres in two cultural contexts--France and Japan. Based on three kinds of data--official texts, videotaped observations and caregivers' discourses--the study highlights the links…

Much has been written about literacy and popular culture but less about the role, if any, of popular culture in children's play. In view of the fact that play is recognized by many as a primary mode of learning, particularly in the early years, and also as an essential process in the representation of ideas and feelings, this is something that…

This paper examines the concept of "teaching" in early education and childcare and argues that the activity of teaching, broadly defined, concerns all adults who work in this area and occurs in all phases of the educational system. Bronfenbrenner's (1979) ecological perspective on human development is applied to conceptualise teaching as (1)…

In Sweden, working with young children in institutions outside the home dates back to the late nineteenth century when public child care provision developed in a context of industrialization, urbanization and democratization. Out of the charitable work of unmarried women in these early institutions, pre-schools and teacher education programmes…

There has been a growing focus in New Zealand on the early literacy learning of young children. This emphasis has challenged early childhood teachers to ensure there are appropriate literacy events within their programme. The aim of this study was to identify early childhood teachers' knowledge and beliefs about literacy learning and examine how…

This article reports on the findings of a small-scale study into the perceptions of 78 primary school children regarding the adults in their classrooms. The data show that children easily differentiate between their own class teacher and other adults, but report a substantial overlap between the activities of teachers and teaching assistants. Some…