162 research outputs found
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A critical reflexión to (re)open the pedagogy about race and racism with toddlers during neighborhood walks
Full text linkAnti-racist education in early childhood education centers the voices, experiences, and knowledge of people of color, fostering both positive racial identity development and critical awareness of racial issues. However, the practical implementation of anti-racist education—particularly in classrooms with very young children—remains underexplored. In response, this reflexive essay revisits two vignettes from neighborhood walks with older toddlers (ages 29–35 months) in a gentrifying community of color to examine the potential of integrating a place-based approach into anti-racist pedagogy. Grounded in the conceptual framework of haunting, this study highlights the silenced yet ever-present histories that emerge through young children\u27s everyday interactions with their surroundings. By critically reflecting on these moments, the paper bridges the gap between theory and practice in anti-racist pedagogy, and advocates for practical, embodied teaching strategies that make space for race-conscious conversations in early learning environments. Ultimately, this essay offers a way to reimagine anti-racist pedagogy in early childhood education, with particular attention to the unique needs and capacities of toddlers
What white people did next: Insights on building an anti-racist early years forum
Full text linkThis collaboratively written paper explores the formation and purpose of the Bristol Early Years Forum for Anti-Racist Practice, a grassroots initiative led by early years educators in the UK. Through collaborative autoethnography, the authors reflect on their motivations, positionalities, and the tensions involved in leading anti-racist work within a predominantly white profession. Drawing on Critical Race Theory, racial literacy, and Emma Dabiri’s (2021) framing of coalition over allyship, the paper interrogates the limitations of racial liberalism and developmentalist thinking in early childhood education. It argues for the political urgency of anti-racist practice in the early years and examines how white educators might engage in more meaningful ways. This paper contributes to the limited body of literature on white educators\u27 roles in anti-racism and offers insight into the transformative potential of community-based professional development
Building anti-racist competences in early childhood education: Collaborative design and impact of a professional development program
Full text linkThe preschool period plays a pivotal role in fostering positive intergroup attitudes and nurturing a healthy self-image in children. With racism on the rise globally, early childhood educators often feel unqualified to address issues of race, diversity and justice, leaving our youngest children vulnerable. In Flanders, there is a notable lack of support and training to build anti-racist competences and implement social justice education in early childhood settings. This study addresses these challenges by co-constructing and evaluating a systeshic, high-quality professional development program specifically tailored to early childhood educators. Utilizing the framework of Educational Design Research, the program was co-developed with early childhood educators based on literature reviews, classroom observations, and interviews. This process led to the identification of six design principles for anti-racist professional development: (a) Diversity content & pedagogical knowledge, (b) intercultural skills, (c) learning materials, (d) community of learners, (e) guided critical reflection, (f) policy and shared vision. These design principles formed the foundation for the subsequent creation and evaluation of a professional development program to strengthen anti-racist practices in early childhood education. A pilot study involving 10 early childhood educators demonstrated significant self-reported improvements in several areas, including: (a) increased use of sensitive and inclusive language, (b) heightened awareness of biases and perspectives, (c) enhanced anti-racist teaching skills, such as addressing racism and designing anti-racist activities for children, (d) strengthened collaboration with colleagues and parents, and (e) greater courage, confidence, and willingness to act against racism in practice. These findings underscore the potential of evidence-based, contextually adapted, and collaboratively designed professional development programs to foster inclusive, anti-racist early childhood environments. The study contributes to the field of early childhood education by emphasizing the importance of community-based, co-constructed approaches to enhance educators’ anti-racist competences
‘Why don’t we teach loving who you are?’ Exploring the need for a positive racial literacy programme for young children
Full text linkThe early years setting is often where young children have their first solo experience of socialising, making friends and meeting unfamiliar adults. It can also be the place where they first experience racism. Further, while research highlights the presence of racial bias and exclusion in early childhood, there is limited understanding of how practitioners address these realities in everyday practice. This paper presents Proud of the Skin I’m In, a racial literacy development programme developed across Wales, England, and the United States to support conversations about race, identity and belonging in early years settings. While the program includes multiple components, this paper focuses on educator reflections gathered during a focus group exploring its feasibility and potential value. This qualitative study draws on a 90-minute online focus group with six early years practitioners from England, Wales, and the United States, which was analysed thematically to explore their perspectives. We find that practitioners welcomed structured opportunities to engage with race but expressed concerns around confidence, implementation, and the tendency for racial identity work to fall disproportionately to minoritised staff. We argue that supporting young children’s racial identity cannot be left to individual goodwill. It must be embedded into everyday pedagogy through intentional practice, shared responsibility, and sustained institutional support—ensuring all children are recognised, affirmed, and encouraged to take pride in their identity
Building a critical teacher-researcher partnership: Anti-racism pedagogies and practices in a first-grade classroom in the Midwest United States
Full text linkThis study investigates our ongoing, multi-year partnership as a university professor and classroom teacher/administrator enacting anti-racist practices and pedagogies in a first-grade classroom in the Midwest area of the United States. Grounded in Critical Race Theory and a critical counterstorytelling methodology, we investigated what our counternarratives could illustrate about how we sustained our anti-racist work with young children. Through our analysis, two insights emerged as important: the importance of engaging with slowness in developing a critical race partnership and developing critical race criteria for selecting children’s books about race and racism. We describe these insights and discuss the implications of this work, while providing suggestions for others interested in developing critical race partnerships
Climate anxiety in early childhood: A state-of-the-art review
Full text linkAs the climate crisis intensifies, young children are increasingly exposed to psychological stress linked to environmental change, manifesting in emerging forms of anxiety, sadness, and guilt. Although climate anxiety in children is gaining international recognition as a legitimate mental health concern, little is known about how these emotions specifically develop in children under the age of eight. This paper presents the first comprehensive state-of-the-art (SotA) review of research on climate anxiety in early childhood, systematically mapping current knowledge, identifying key conceptual and methodological gaps, and proposing priorities for future inquiry. Findings reveal that empirical studies in this area remain scarce, are often adapted from adult-centered frameworks, and predominantly situated within Euro-Western contexts. The review argues for developmentally appropriate, culturally responsive, and interdisciplinary approaches that seriously engage with both the emotional experiences and agentic capacities of young children. By highlighting critical gaps and outlining future research directions, this review lays the foundation for a more inclusive, child-sensitive, and globally relevant research agenda on climate anxiety in early childhood
Rethinking play and child-centredness within early childhood curriculum in Croatia
Full text linkWithin Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) the child-centred approach, with all its various and diverse contextual interpretations, is well-established as a cynosure of contemporary theoretical discourses as well as endeavours in everyday practice, at least on a declarative level. Play is positioned as a high priority within the child-centred approach; more specifically, play is conceptualized as the central activity of the child through which they learn. Whilst these two concepts seem to be coherent and based upon similar theoretical underpinnings, there is much room for critical discussion concerning the conceptualizations and rationale behind both of them. This paper discusses how the academic community, in this paper, exemplified by specific policy-makers and early childhood educators in Croatia, see play and child-centredness in the curriculum-framed ECEC context. An e-focus group was conducted with twelve (12) early childhood educators in Croatia, showcasing the educators’ uncertainties regarding thinking about and ‘doing’ play and child-centredness while realising their planned curriculum. The paper concludes with deliberations on the position of adults within child-centred ECEC practice, based on both literature and research results with a potential impact in terms of rethinking ECEC practices as well as documentation practices in Croatia
Understanding and implementing play as a learning pedagogy: Narratives of practitioners in early childhood mobile units
Full text linkThis research examined practitioners\u27 narratives on understanding play as a learning pedagogy in early childhood mobile units. The national curriculum framework encourages practitioners and teachers in early childhood settings to employ a variety of play pedagogies to stimulate young learners to develop core skills in early childhood learning environments. Underpinned by Vygotsky\u27s sociocultural theory, the article draws from the zone of proximal development and social interaction as significant theoretical concepts to examine practitioners’ understanding of play as a learning pedagogy in early childhood mobile units. A phenomenological within the qualitative research domain was utilised to gather in-depth data on the topic under investigation. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews with twenty practitioners purposively selected to provide their narratives on understanding play as a learning pedagogy in early childhood mobile units. The Atlas.ti software was used to analyse the collected data using a narrative strategy. The findings revealed that the practitioners maintained a high standard of service delivery within the mobile Early Childhood Care and Education unit contexts, which was transformative, high-quality and play-based. This paper contributes to the existing knowledge of delivering high-quality play-based learning pedagogy in early childhood settings
Integrating playful pedagogies with the curriculum: The perspectives and practices of teachers working across infant, first and second classes, in Ireland
Full text linkWhile play is a key feature of the early childhood curriculum, its role in primary education can be more peripheral. In Ireland, a new primary curriculum framework aims to strengthen connections between learning in preschool and school through embedding a playful approach, more dynamically, in the primary context. This paper will share findings from an online mixed methods survey of 293 teachers, working in junior and senior infants and in first and second class. Congruent with research in other countries, findings suggest that while play is associated with a broad range of benefits, and is seen as compatible with learning in school, its potential is not optimised due to a myriad of system, school, teacher, and child features. While the prominence of playful pedagogies in the new primary curriculum framework is welcome, the current findings underscore issues which could impact on the fidelity with which it is implemented. The findings from this study affirm the value of surfacing teachers’ perspectives during times of curriculum reform. The perceived enablers and barriers, to adopting playful and innovative pedagogical approaches, can inform the provision of resources and design of supports which will be required to embed play successfully in Irish primary schools. To harness existing best practice and to propel and sustain curriculum innovation, teachers clearly need to be seen as partners rather than mere consumers or receivers of curriculum redevelopment
Activities of musical expression and creation in the context of the integrated curriculum for early childhood education and care
Full text linkAdhering to the principles of social constructivism, as well as understanding the child’s personality and respecting the child as a social being in a certain context, the National Curriculum for Early Childhood Education and Care offers a new paradigm of childhood. Recognizing the child’s holistic image and the integrated and exploratory nature of the child’s learning, musical learning activities are organized as part of a whole within a project topic. To better understand and improve the representation of musical activities in educational practice, this research aimed to describe how musical activities are implemented from the aspect of integrated curriculum and project-based learning. Participatory ethnography as a type of practice-based research was applied to present and describe various forms and ways of implementing and connecting musical activities with other methodological areas within project-based learning. A total of 18 children aged 4 to 6 years participated in the activities. To gain a deeper understanding of the children\u27s culture, experiences and development, while building trust and supporting their holistic wellbeing, the research used ethnographic methods, including participant observation with a focus on reflexivity and descriptive writing. It is concluded that educators can effectively integrate musical activities into project-based learning in line with the national curriculum, which supports holistic child development and enriches children\u27s competencies by creatively combining music with other areas of development