There was not one, singular childhood in socialist Czechoslovakia, but many and diverse, plural, childhoods. Spanning over 40 years (1948-1989), the Czechoslovak communist governance produced diverse conceptualisations of childhoods that remain often invisible, unexplored, and the current analyses are at best sketchy and refer mostly to…

In this article we consider historical and contemporary ideologies of childhood in China and critically examine notions of 'child' and 'childhood' in Chinese children's literature. We analyse the themes and knowledge that relate to relevant historical and contemporary political events and policies, and how these contribute to the production of…

This article examines Slovak early years teachers' concerns with conceptions of teacher professionalism. It suggests that there is a mismatch between understandings of professionalism, policy aspirations and the attitudes of teachers to their own professionalism, and that this mismatch fuels early years teachers' sense of agency. These tensions…

This article focuses on the production of children's literature in New Zealand. It problematizes the current practices of releasing and distributing children's literature, and explores these practices as technologies of control through processes of censorship and classification set by government agencies such as the Office for Film and Literature.…

This article examines the effects of edu-capitalism and neoliberal education policies across Australia, New Zealand and United States to disrupt hegemonic policy logic based on neutral human capital. Current frameworks, standards and assessment tools govern and control how early childhood educators see and assess children and in turn develop and…

Government ideologies seek to produce ideal childhoods within their political and ideological frameworks. Using the analysis of a children's magazine in kindergartens in socialist Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 1980s, this paper argues that children's literature produces political and ideologically charged childhood subjectivities. Tensions…