In Danish early childhood education and care (ECEC), pedagogues traditionally work in a child-centred manner, valuing the children's experiences. During the last 150 years pedagogues have developed expertise in framing everyday life for children while paying double attention to the children's perspectives, on one hand, and to their own pedagogical…

In Britain, 'super-diverse' communities, where children navigate multiple cultural repertoires, are increasingly prevalent. However, Reception teachers are pressured to ensure children, aged four and five, conform to a narrow conception of 'school-readiness'. Research demonstrates children in multicultural contexts construct a 'third space',…

Drawing from Anzaldúa's (1999) ideas on borderlands, this conceptual article addresses the potential of basketball as a space for developing critical subjectivities within minoritized communities. Further, working through relevant scholarship at the intersections of race, play, education, and sports, connections are made as to how basketball is…

Play is a place of diverse meaning-making for young children and often central to family life. This paper reports on a family study in which the authors analyse Author One's family photos of young children's play across four generations. The photo analysis shows continuity and transformations in the types of play activities the young children…

The early childhood education (ECE) sector has been subjected to increased governance, which has manifested in an increased focus on monitoring and steering the daily life of preschools. It is well documented that instruments of governance change teachers' priorities and practices. Changes are not always in line with the aims of the governing…

Purpose: Children's vocabulary and syntactic skills vary upon school entry in depth and breadth, persistently influencing academic performance, including reading. Enhancing early communicative abilities through multisensory, playful, and conversational experiences is essential and will benefit children's school readiness. This study investigated…

Over the past decade the market for children's digital play activities focused on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) has grown exponentially. One benefit to the growth in digital STEM play is that it can provide children opportunities to engage the cognitive skills and practices that can be valuable for formal STEM learning.…

The Sonoran Desert is a magical place full of beauty and wonder. With an increase each year in the number of new families calling Arizona their home, so also comes an increase in pre-conceived notions of the dangers of the Sonoran Desert. Dangers such as plants, animals, and weather conditions can cause fears in families. Though these fears are…

The authors explore children's symbolic play that involves themes of fear and darkness, and they investigate the nature of children's binary oppositions, particularly between self and other. Their account is based on a year-long qualitative study they conducted with seven children, four to ten years of age. They observed the children engage with…

Caregivers' goals influence their interactions with their children. In this preregistered study, we examined whether directing parents to "teach" their baby versus "learn" from their baby influenced the extent to which they engaged in intrusive (e.g., controlling, adult-centered rather than child-centered), sensitive, warm, or…

"Emotion Regulation" is a key factor in the psychological well-being of children on the autism spectrum. Therapeutic "co-regulation" is posited here as fundamental to addressing Emotion Regulation needs. A therapeutic combination of "Child-Centred Play Therapy" and "Rhythmic Relating" is assessed in its…

We have elaborate systems of formal instruction--schools, universities, and training institutes--all to facilitate learning within the walls. At the same time, there are ample opportunities for learning in the wild--in nature, libraries, and museums, online, in play and work, and through daily interaction with others. But the potential for…

Entry of children to primary schools in India marks a sudden shift in the pedagogical approach as play-based pedagogy gives way to formal instruction. This paper argues that children's play motives do not subside when they enter school, rather play takes a more mature form and represents a strong linkage between their thought and reality. The…

While evolving societal needs have created a demand for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) outcomes in early childhood, research indicates a deficit view on early childhood teachers' ability to teach STEM. Existing teaching models are primarily developed from school-based research, conflicting with the early childhood…

Because of the condition of limited gross motor learning, especially in basic movements based on the play method for children aged (5-6 years) is the main problem in this study. This study aims to develop a learning model for non-locomotor, locomotor and manipulative basic movements as an effort to improve basic movement skills in students and…