The aim of, Jane's, Soundwaves Early Childhood Music lead, and Karen's, Early Childhood Studies lecturer, inquiry is to encourage new insights into how multiple relationalities and learning play out, throughout Soundwaves, an early childhood music education (ECME) programme. We work with Barad's diffractive methodology to shape our…

In early childhood classrooms, increased pressures to prioritize literacy acquisition skills have shifted learning environments from more open-ended and exploratory to regulatory in nature particularly in the field of literacy. Despite that research suggests the important role of exploratory and agentic literacy practices, the field is…

As part of ongoing collaborations with associate and mentor teachers, we explore teachers' decision making in order to help student teachers and others become aware of the myriad decisions and political choices made by teachers in their everyday work with children. In this article we are particularly interested in care, and in the way the idea of…

Children's literature is an important pedagogical tool in early childhood classrooms as it provides opportunities for young readers to engage with texts and to see the world from multiple perspectives. Central to cultivating equitable early childhood learning experiences is utilizing children's literature with multiple representations of…

As a patriarchal and neoliberal construct, professionalism actively contorts the embodied care work of this femme profession into a predetermined frame, fragmenting, constricting, and harming educators' identities. In this paper, we briefly outline the ongoing project of professionalism both in the ECEC sector broadly and in the unique context of…

Educational leadership at early childhood education (ECE) has been extensively studied. However, evidence from Chile is still scarce. As with many parts of the world, the ECE workforce is very female-heavy and Chile is no exception to this. This situation presents an intriguing context for leadership studies as particularities of a gendered role…

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…

This colloquium discusses the intersection of love, care, and education in the field of early childhood education and care. While the name of the field reflects the belief that both care and education are seen as legitimate elements of the field's professional discourse, love is still unspoken, undefined, and taken for granted. The author argues…

In response to dominant discourses of quality and an over-reliance on humancentric practice, the "Learning with Place" framework emerges as an innovative way to rethink practices, structures, and policies within education and beyond. 'Learning with Place' views the local Place as agentic, recognising Place as inclusive of local First…

It has been well-established that highly gendered, early childhood education workforces face major temporal, material, physical and psychological barriers to being well. This issue is particularly pressing in this political moment: a national childcare policy program is being rolled out for the first time in Canadian history. It is in this context…

The development of emotional competence is an important milestone during early childhood. Beyond early experience within the family, the (preschool) classroom is a relevant socialisation context, and both teachers and peers may contribute to children's emotion-related outcomes. Tracking changes in the emotion regulation competence of N = 173…

Drawing from the post-qualitative research in the dissertation, "Animal Magic, Secret Spells, and Green Power: More-Than-Human Assemblages of Children's Storytelling" (Molloy Murphy, "Animal magic, secret spells, and green power: More-than-human assemblages of children's storytelling." https://doi.org/10.15760/etd.7318, 2020),…

Background: The professional development (PD) of early childhood teachers is of strategic importance in higher education and the profession given the need to improve responsiveness and progress towards millennium goals. Aim: The purpose was to analyse classroom practices and teachers' experiences of PD programmes, through the theoretical lens of…

This study followed three preservice student teachers as they navigated a semester-long infant-toddler practicum designed to enact a relationship-based approach to teaching and learning. Selected participants were in particular and contrasting placement settings, which served as a catalyst for engaging in critical reflection in multiple ways.…

Values of independence and self-determination predominate over relations of care and compassion in fast-paced academia and post-secondary institutions, a "malaise" that faculty and students alike experience. Large-scale production rewards the "Invictus" (undefeatable, unconquered), leaving others mostly to their own and…