Making sensitive pedagogic relationships in the nursery is a deeply human activity evoking joy and satisfaction, but stress and uncertainty too. From an international perspective, strong local reflective spaces are required if early childhood provision is to be culturally and context responsive, counter-balancing globalising pressure to…

The significance of practitioners' emotions in nursery interactions is evident in vivid accounts from widely different socio-cultural contexts. Work Discussion (WD) is a model of professional reflection distinctive in its attention to emotion in work interactions. Psychoanalytic conceptions, particularly the notion of the defended subject,…