This piece is a collective exploration by seven doctoral researchers in Child Studies, who discuss notions of listening to children and young people in a Swedish context. We approach different aspects of listening in research and in practices such as education, psychiatry, and social work. The discussions in this collective writing are an…

In Italy, family fostering is in most cases a voluntary service where foster parents are non-professional helpers. About half of the foster parents are couples with children of their own, which makes fostering a "family enterprise." Within growing attention to children's voices in research, the paper focuses on children living foster…

In times of disasters and adversity, children are among the most vulnerable. The "United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child" (1989) highlights the importance of protecting children from harm and making decisions in their best interests--matters that become heightened in an adverse context. From 2020 to 2023, the government of…

Through a new materialist inquiry, as a bounded review, we cartographically and diffractively read/plot media reports about genderdiverse, transgender and non-binary (GDTNB) students in education in Australia. We utilise diffractive analysis to explore the complexities of these representations, revealing how exclusions shape the public discourse…

This paper explores perspectives on family reunification and emergent forms of separation among young migrants. These young people lived apart from and later reunited with their migrant parents who moved from the Philippines to Canada for work. I draw from 15 months of ethnographic, arts-based, and participatory research with ten participants…

Children's right to be heard is an issue raised in recent years in the Global North, which has also been acknowledged by Chinese researchers currently studying child development and education. However, Chinese researchers still often prefer the perspectives of adults in their research on young children, citing a lack of suitable methodologogy for…

This study aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of belonging in early educational institutions based on key findings developed within the international project Politics of belonging: promoting children's inclusion in educational settings across border (85644). The research questions are: What are the main empirical and theoretical…

This response to the question about what we are angry about and what we dream of for young children reflects our work of over 30 years in Australasia. For Kylie in Australia and for Sonja in Aotearoa New Zealand and now also Australia. We direct the RECE common call, for an elevation of children's rights, to a voice, to a 'good' education, and to…

There is limited evidence on family reintegration for children who have been in residential care within the African context. The goal of this study is to find out what factors impact reintegrated institutionalized children's desire to remain with their biological parents or extended family. The dataset included records for 659 interviewed children…

In the current age of border talk, border enforcement, and of draconian policies that further separate and break up families, children who remain in the country of origin are rarely asked what they understand the border and the United States to be like. Media vehicles and academic papers have reported the brutal effects of family separation at the…

In the aftermath of catastrophes, art based participatory research has proven to be a useful tool for evoking emotions and knowledge in affected children, as well as for informing risk education and recovery psychology practices. Framed by disaster risk reduction and environmental philosophy, this article analyses a sample of drawings produced by…

The accessibility of new media combined with emerging patterns of migration are challenging current definitions of community as we see a shift from close-knit face-to-face interactions to more diverse 'glocalized' networks that defines community as a social rather than a spatial dimension. These changes mean that social connections, and…

This essay brings together three intergenerational colleagues, two RECE founders, and a mid-career colleague, engaged in reciprocal mentorship, collaborative projects, and research focused on child care, critical policy studies, and global childhoods. We explore our encounters with RECE and how we have engaged with, been influenced by, and found…

Young children's engagement in Education for Sustainability has focussed predominantly on their participation in environment-based initiatives or practices. Reasons for this include a notion that wider dimensions of sustainability, including social, political and economic areas of concern can be too complex and overwhelming for young children.…

Although digital games have become a constituent part of young children's lives, not enough is known about the kinds of meanings children give to games and gaming. This qualitative study contributes to resolving this need by engaging 26 5- to 7-year-old Finnish preschoolers in an open-ended drawing task to answer the following research questions:…