Keyword: early childhood education

ABSTRACT: The birth-to-five-year period is a critical stage in a child’s development. Most brain growth occurs during this time, laying the foundation for future learning. Early childhood education plays a pivotal role in shaping early development. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are essential components of early childhood education, influencing children’s identities and socio-cultural development. Introducing DEI concepts at an early age equips children with the knowledge and skills needed to navigate a globalized world while fostering an appreciation for diverse perspectives. Children exposed to multiple languages and cultures tend to develop empathy and acceptance of others. This qualitative study explores how educators integrate DEI into early childhood settings through semi-structured interviews and document analysis. Teachers and administrators from Belize, Canada, the United States of America, Egypt, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates share their approaches toward promoting DEI in early childhood programs and the challenges they face in implementation. Purposeful, convenience, and snowball sampling were utilized to recruit participants. Findings demonstrate that while educators value DEI and aim to foster inclusive learning environments, the manner in which DEI is implemented varies. Recommendations will equip educators and policymakers with best practices for fostering inclusive, respectful learning environments that support all children and their families. Future research examining the intersectionality of educators’ identities, including gender, sexual orientation, race, culture, and professional roles, may offer deeper insight into how lived experiences shape DEI understanding and practices in early childhood education.

ABSTRACT: This study explores the use of photovoice as a reflective practice tool for early childhood student teachers in a teacher preparation program. Reflective practice is crucial for professional growth, yet traditional journaling often feels disconnected from real-world experiences for student teachers. Photovoice, which encourages participants to capture and reflect on meaningful classroom moments through photography, offers an engaging alternative. This research investigates the aspects of student teaching that candidates find reflective, how their images express satisfaction and dissatisfaction, and how group discussions develop shared understanding. Using a constructivist framework, seven student teachers participated in a semester-long photovoice project. Data were collected through over 350 images, descriptions, and four group discussions. Findings reveal four key reflective themes: instructional resources, student engagement, classroom environment, and relationships. While photovoice enhanced critical reflection and community building, participants were hesitant to openly discuss negative experiences, reflecting challenges in developing self-assessment. The study concludes that photovoice holds significant promise for enriching reflective practice in teacher education by integrating visual analysis and group dialogue and recommends its inclusion in teacher preparation curricula as a strategy for fostering critical reflection and community building.

ABSTRACT: This article shares what Swedish preschool teachers are working with in the field of early childhood education for sustainable development (ESD) as emerged in talks with their children, aged two to five years. The tasks carried out as the basis for the present
analyses were informal child talks about a topic related to sustainability that the teachers and children had worked with in practice. The teachers themselves chose what content to talk about. The 200 teachers participated in the Swedish research and development program Sustainable Preschool. The aim of the present study was to make visible the content of teacher-child talks about sustainable development in early childhood education. The research question is as follows: What content areas do teachers communicate about with children 2–5 years of age related to ESD? The teacher-child talks were initiated by the teachers, but through the use of interpretative content analysis the children’s voices were also made visible. The main result is narratives about the content, the most common topics being recycling, growing plants and animals, areas which have long been common topics in Swedish preschools. For many preschools, however, the talks show an integration of transformative and transactional perspectives in how the content was handled together with the children. ESD in early education in Sweden is no longer dominated by the environmental dimension, as earlier content studies have shown; a new common content relates to the UN Sustainable Development Goal 4.7 regarding sustainable lifestyles and human rights, and sustainability is a long process, founded in empowerment, action competence, and changed policy.