In the field of early childhood research children's mobility is usually discussed only in terms of physical activity in the preschool yard. More seldom is it discussed in terms of mobility practices and how young children move in public spaces. With unique detailed video-ethnographic data on mobile preschools and a new combination of theories on…

This paper considers the role of eportfolios as an online tool intended to foster greater engagement between parent, teacher and child in early education settings. Drawing on New Zealand based research, I will critically examine the introduction of this technology as more than an addition into already existing ECEC services. Rather, I will…

Places assigned and places chosen have major implications for the lives of children. While the former are a result of children's subordinate position in an adult world, the latter are the essence of their agency. Beginning at a young age children seek out places to claim as their own. Places, real and imaginary, shape children and children shape…

Children's autonomy is a cultural ideal in Finnish early childhood education and care (ECEC). In this article we examine autonomy in spatial terms. The theoretical background is developed by applying spatial sociology. Our starting point is that space is relationally produced, thus, we understand space as continuously negotiated, reconstructed and…

This paper proposes a way to understand what early care and education systems look like from the vantage point of the child. In other words, it aims to fuse a system perspective and a child perspective of early childhood education and care (ECEC) in a way that acknowledges children as active co-producers of ECEC landscapes. In developing this…

In this article, we endeavour to think spatially about the texture of infants' everyday lives and their ways of 'doing' belonging in the babies' room in an Australian early childhood education and care centre. Drawing on data from a large, multiple case-study project, and on theorisations of space that reject Euclidean notions of space as empty,…

Global flows and their geopolitical power relations powerfully shape the environments in which children lead their everyday lives. Children's images, imaginations and ideas of distant places are part of these global flows and the everyday activities children perform in preschool. Research explores how through curricula young children are moulded…

Education has to emphasize the characteristics which define Western democratic societies. In addition, it has to ensure the active and participative inclusion of each person in social life, where respect for human rights prevails over the person's preferred ideology. Promoting these values in citizens not only guarantees the stability of the…

In this article, the authors respond to emerging articulations of the work of a pedagogist or pedagogical facilitator in early childhood education in Canada. This article is grounded in two intentions: we (1) share the tentative pedagogical conversations that we have as pedagogists who centre particular concerns, interests, and accountabilities;…

The sphere of early childhood education care (ECEC) in the Czech Republic has diversified enormously in the last decade. The article describes this diversification process and, drawing on focus group data, analyses parents' choices within this diversified realm. Based on the parents' selection criteria (significantly influenced by constraints and…

Analysing teaching-practice offers an opportunity to answer questions like what is critical to making a pedagogy democratic, what are the factors that support a teacher to be critical in her teaching? Or what restricts the teacher in being critical in her work? This paper seeks to address some of these questions by presenting the findings of an…

In German there is a long tradition of institutionalized daycare center-based early education. These institutions are concerned with "Bildung, Erziehung und Betreuung"--the education and care of children up to six years of age. Education and childrearing as well as care are all important but separate processes in German early childhood…

The field of early childhood education is increasingly dominated by a strongly positivistic and regulatory discourse, the story of quality and high returns, which has spread from its local origins in the favourable environment provided by a global regime of neoliberalism. But though dominant, this is not the only discourse in early childhood…

In 2009, the Australian states and territories signed an agreement to provide 15 hours per week of universal access to quality early education to all children in Australia in the year before they enter school. Taking on board the international evidence about the importance of early education, the Commonwealth government made a considerable…

The article analyses the Slovak preschool education sector using Bourdieu's field theory. It describes stable and volatile points in the evolution of preschool education in terms of the power games occurring within the specific social field of power relations shaped during these games. It explores the groups of powerful players that represent the…