For those experiencing them, educational transitions include not only the present time but are embedded within institutions that precede and extend beyond the individuals. This article explores how, as an institutional space, the early childhood education and care (ECEC) setting is (re)produced within young children's encounters with others during…

This article elaborates the relational ontology in an ethnographic study. The aim is to seek relational construction of preschool practice and how children's positions are constructed in it. The study is based on the understanding that ethnography and relational sociology share the idea that society emerges through repeated relations. The…

This paper explores the context of a Kindergarten team in a suburban P-3 school in Wisconsin developing literacy coaching support. Facing recent neoliberal accountability reforms that have greatly expanded teacher competition, dismantled teachers' unions, and added the role of the coach to the school, "confidence" is an issue that the…

This paper draws on Bernstein's sociology of knowledge to examine the academic study of early childhood in England, involving scrutiny of how knowledge is recontextualised from contributory disciplines to take account of early childhood practice and professionalism, and of governmental influence on what counts as disciplinary and curriculum…

This article is an academic commentary on the concept of sociology of education. The authors have ventured through the lens of Hannah Arendt's "The Human Condition" and discuss its impact might have had if the corresponding mode of education and pedagogy be carried out in reality according to what Arendt had inspired her readers. A cross…

This study investigates the emergence and supply-demand dynamics of a market for low-fee private schools (LFPS) at the level of early childhood care and education (ECCE) in a slum of Lusaka, Zambia. Based on data collection over 1.5 years, the study reveals that, despite a government policy to support ECCE, over 90% of ECCE centers are private;…

In this essay we develop the concept of 'cosmopolitan nationalism', offering a working definition and suggesting ways sociologists of education might draw on it in their future work. We show how it is a useful analytical lens through which to examine contemporary policies and practices that navigate global processes (ranking systems, mobility of…

This paper will present multiple themes that are intermingled with one another, aiming to bring an overview of sociology of education and its application in the Hong Kong situation. One of the themes concerns how sociology of education has intertwined with the socio-political aspect of Hong Kong before and after year 1997 resulting in different…

This article presents findings from a small qualitative case study of a youth volunteering brokerage organisation in England, operating in an area of selective state education. Data show how brokerage workers felt grammar schools managed their students in a concerted way to improve students' chances of attending university. Conversely, workers…

This article argues for an early childhood professionalism based upon notions of professional community and professional knowledge. Professionalism is conceived here as shaped by the relation between the social and the epistemic, with certain types of professional knowledge given precedence in accordance with the involvement of different…

This special issue focuses on histories, pedagogies, policies, philosophies and alternative perspectives in early childhood education. "Te Whariki" is heralded as the first bicultural curriculum not only in New Zealand, but in the world. Its importance is reflected in national and international research and early childhood discourses.…

This qualitative study was an exploration of mothers' perspectives on home-school connections to better understand the variable ways families engage with schools in early childhood. The study was conducted in the USA, and included 47 mothers with preschool-aged children who participated in semi-structured interviews concerning their children's…

Drawing upon various scholars' conceptual work on the knowledge domains that underpin teaching in the era of globalization, this paper examines the aspects of teaching they have affected and the extent of their influence. This article reports the results from a mixed-methods study with 138 preschool teacher participants in Singapore. The findings…

"Common worlds" is a conceptual framework developed to reconceptualise inclusion in early childhood communities. Common worlds take account of children's relations with all the others in their worlds--including the more-than-human others. The ethics and politics of living together in these common worlds is the central concern of this article. The…

This article discusses the central issue of the transition to preschool. Individual semi-structured interviews with school professionals and parents in the Brussels region revealed that this issue is crucial for the well-being of young children, from both an educational and a social perspective. We discovered that the education system works under…