Knowing how children become oriented to imaginary play can help educators in centres better support development. But how this begins in the first years of life is not well understood. How toddlers transform through their imagination concrete objects (such as play accessories, figurines, and books) to become props in play (placeholders and pivots)…

This article focuses on imagination and the role it can play in bringing about transformation. Through telling stories of feminist activism and teaching, we consider how imagination can extend our understanding of transformative learning. We examine how creative expression and various art forms have enabled imagination and consider the conditions…

Framing education ecologically and cultivating an environmental consciousness in the way Michael Bonnett has articulated poses a fresh challenge to educators to identify the latent aspects of educational philosophy and practice that are rooted in an Enlightenment 'metaphysic of mastery'. In 'The Significance of Myth for Environmental Education'…

A variety of studies have attempted to explain the dispositions of imagination; notably, imagination engages and develops an individual's creativity. In the present study, we propose that three types of imagination dispositions (i.e., epistemic, sensory, and future imagination) serve as cognitive mechanisms for the ability to efficiently generate…

The most important and general aim of the education system is to edify students, epistemically speaking. However, it is a sad reality that the education system is sometimes a corruptive epistemic environment in which a variety of epistemic injustices occur. In this article, I first argue that the special character of educational institutions means…

This article argues for exploring, connecting, and applying utopian imagination, speculative design, and planetary thinking as a way forward for higher education to reimagine and move towards more hopeful planetary futures. It examines hopepunk and solarpunk perspectives on possible futures to propose a design agenda for rewidening and rewilding…

An important element to doing mathematics and developing conceptual understanding in mathematics is creating and making sense of visual representations. Developing mathematical understanding happens when students invent (or reinvent) strategies and think deeply about why a strategy works. Although societal and political pressures may say otherwise…

Pretend play provides enriched environments for multiple cognitive and social purposes. The quality of children's pretend play depends on the process, including children's back and forth proposals and responses about the play frames. Proposing and responding to play ideas with metacommunication use, leadership-followership interactions are…

Objective: Maladaptive daydreaming (MD) is an impairing condition characterized by addiction to narrative, emotional fantasizing, involving dissociative absorption. By compulsively withdrawing toward vivid imaginative scenarios, MD hinders attentional functioning and replaces social interactions. Previous Interview-based research showed clinical…

This exploratory study investigates the potential trajectories of education through a unique thought experiment conducted using three artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbots, namely GPT-4o, Gemini 2.0 Flash, and DeepSeek R1. The chatbots were tasked with generating both utopian and dystopian scenarios for the future of education, providing a…

This article examines how small collectives, 'sociotechnical vanguards', contribute to shaping visions of future classrooms, focusing on edtech companies in Estonia. Moving away from global 'sociotechnical imaginaries', the study focuses on the visions of the future classroom articulated by the Estonian edtech companies as a sociotechnical…

This paper introduces new tools for the cultural-historical analysis of children play in early years and how the cultural-historical genetic-analytical model can be applied as a tool of analysis of the role of children's play in psychological development. The paper discusses the complexity of the interrelations of several situations in child's…

Responses in resisting and subverting capitalist structures and practices often foreground imagination and experimentation. In environmental and sustainability education, imagination has been previously called upon as a way to sympathetically engage learners in environmental issues or to conjure alternative futures. But what other possibilities…

The use of natural and non-natural play materials in early childhood education is a critical facilitator to children's learning and development. Different materials vary in their affordances for sophisticated play, imagination, and creativity, which contribute to children's complex thinking; with the current focus on technology, it has been…

Background: Children with Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) display impaired pretend play abilities, reflective of broader social-cognitive challenges. Pretend play interventions for children with PWS demonstrate preliminary efficacy for improving cognitive and affective processes in play. It is unknown which specific intervention strategies, such as…