The concept of nature and how humans relate to nature provide the framework for this philosophical discussion on challenges facing the evolving field of early childhood environmental education. Posthumanistic thinking is proposed as an alternative to what is perpetuated through a more typical Western approach to education. This Western approach…

"Whole-child development" can mean different things to educators, researchers, other child- and youth-serving professionals, and policymakers. Multiple bodies of research and methods of analysis affirm that child development (and human development in general) is dynamic, bi-directional (i.e., the child and context influence each other),…

Despite a 100-year-old history and the existence of schools in nearly every country in the world, Waldorf education is a little known and poorly understood educational model that was developed in Europe by Austrian philosopher Rudolph Steiner. For many years it existed in the United States in the form of private schools. Few of their teachers or…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to scrutinise two ostensibly disparate approaches to school-based mental health promotion and offer a conceptual foundation for considering possible synergies between them. Design/methodology/approach: The paper examines current conceptualisations of child and youth mental health and explores how these inform…

This paper describes a nature-based social-emotional approach to supporting young children's holistic development that can be applied in a range of early childhood settings from forest kindergartens and nature-based preschools to more traditional center-based early childhood programs. "The Social-Emotional and Environmental Education…

Early Childhood Education in India derives its premise from its sociocultural context. In spite of policies in place for developmentally and contextually appropriate Early Childhood Education, the practices are largely detrimental for this age group. The ray of hope, amidst such a scenario are a few initiatives, one such being the rural preschool…

To address the developmental deficits of children with autism, several disciplines have come to the forefront within intervention programs. These are speech-pathologists, psychologists/counselors, occupational-therapists/physical-therapists, special-education consultants, behavior analysts, and physicians/medical personnel. As the field of autism…

Now in its second edition, "Nature and Young Children" promotes the holistic development of children by connecting them with nature. It offers advice and guidance on how to set up indoor and outdoor nature play spaces as well as encouraging environmentally responsible attitudes, values and behaviour in your early childhood setting. Covering topics…

Early intervention and early childhood special education professionals espouse the need for authentic assessment and meaningful family involvement, as well as relationship-based and routines-based intervention. This article explores a play-based approach to assessment that reflects these values by using the Transdisciplinary Play-Based Assessment,…